Tuesday 30 December 2008

REVIEW: Ay Ay Picante, Chicago

Mmmmm, Peruvian food. If Mexican and Spanish food were rancheros and got together in the Andes and had a baby, it would be Peruvian food. Simple, hearty food with a nod to coastal and/ or farm living.

Ay Ay Picante is on Elston in Chicago- way out of the heart of the city and situated in a somewhat random location. There is no alcohol served, but it is BYOB and they don't seem to mind if you and your party get a little rowdy in their small establishment. The location and lack of liquor license trickle down into the food prices, which don't hover over $15 a plate. Everything tastes extremely fresh and homemade.

I had the ceviche, one of my favorite dishes EVER and was absolutely impressed. First off, the mound of tilapia was HUGE. It had to have been at least 2 cups of fish. It was tossed in the most fantastic cilantro citrus sauce, super fresh, and loaded with fresh red onion (I hate raw onion, but they were sliced so paper thin that I actually enjoyed them).

On the side was what I assume was an heirloom variety of corn on the cob. Each kernal was the size of a dime and had the most peculiar texture- a mix between a potato and corn, with a taste to match. It was super good.

The other side was a very large slice of sweet potatoe. Nothing unusual, but paired with the cilantro citrus sauce, it tasted heavenly. Even though it was snowing its ass off outside, I didn't mind that everything was served cold, it was so tasty.

My boyfriend had some sort of meaty steak dish that was piled high with strip steak, grilled veggies like red pepper, potatoes, onions- a really hearty dish that looked like something rancheros would love to gobble up. I didn't try it (gluten maybe?), but he sweared it was amazing.

This was one diner that I didn't stop making annoying "MMMMMMMMM!" noises with each bite. That rarely happens and I strongly suggest you check this place out!

Saturday 27 December 2008

Restaurant Review: Golden Corral

I'm on vacation through the end of the year. I planned to write a post about mashed potato casserole, but I wasn't happy with how the recipe turned out. Instead, I'll start things off with a ridiculous restaurant review. Enjoy.

That's right, I will review the Golden Corral. It's odd that we rarely read reviews of restaurants like this, perhaps it's because we've come to expect what the experience will be like: shitty. As someone who has tried to do better with their life and health I haven't had a chance to eat at a place like this in somewhere around a decade. On my recent trip to Fayetteville, NC (proof that military jobs are not necessarily a positive thing) I found my "opportunity."

Let us take a step back and provide some reason for this. Mostly, I want to give the back story because I feel guilty for eating at this establishment. I was in North Carolina visiting my sister-in-law. Her husband is in the Army, which subsequently means he is deployed in Iraq. She isn't left with a lot of money to feed their four children. Last time I visited I was able to control where we ate by offering to pay, this time I don't have the money to be so generous. 'Tis the season of giving, and I've given all I can. When we suggested an alternative, it was shot down. The choice was to dine at the Corral or dine separately. I begrudgingly accepted the former.

With our excuses - pardon, explanations - aside, we can focus on the experience. This is best described by the sign on the door: corral. It starts with the serpentine line at the entrance where they are kind enough to let you serve yourself a drink before you pay up front for your meal. From there you are set free to find a table and pick from the chum.

Everything is do-it-yourself, yet the freedom seems limited by available choices. You sit at the nearest table, lest your trips to the buffet be too long, or involve a collision with another hungry grazer. Each trip involves stopping to grab a plate, and probably some silverware. Fill with foodstuffs, sit, inhale, repeat.

The food was surprisingly good, for a buffet. As I said, my last trip to a buffet was somewhere around a decade ago. My future wife and I went to Ryan's "Steakhouse" in Dayton, OH. I walked in with pleasant memories of buffets from my childhood, I walked out hurt and confused because I didn't remember the food being so horrible. This buffet was better than that, though that isn't saying too much.

My first course was a salad. Normally these places have okay salad bars, and this was no exception. I was impressed that they had four choices for greens: the standard iceberg fare, romaine (presumably for ceasar salads), spring greens, and spinach. I'm not a big fan of iceberg for whatever reason but I love the other three so that's what I got, a mixture of all three. Throw on some broccoli and carrots, a little cheese, and some dressing and we have a decent basic salad. The ingredients were fresh and it tasted good.

The next course wasn't as great. I had a chicken leg that was pan fried with jalapeno peppers, boiled carrots, a baked potato, "bourbon street chicken," and a hush puppy. The chicken leg didn't have even a hint of spice in the finished product. So much for those peppers. The carrots were boiled to death and relatively flavorless, but my son liked them - he also just began walking. The baked potato was cold, though it was cooked through. It was the only thing I didn't finish on that plate. The hush puppy wasn't remarkable, I threw it on there because they are a rarity up north. The bourbon street chicken was the star of this course. It was the sort of sweet greasy mess that tastes great, even if you can feel yourself dying when you eat it.

It had a dark, redish brown sauce covering small pieces of dark chicken meat that are fork-tender. The initial bite is sweet and smokey, the sweetness lingers and a richness from the fat kicks in. Everything goes down easy and I was instantly hooked. This was the only item I had a second serving of. (Off my wife's plate, thanks!)

Finally, there was desert. It was as I remembered. Cheap cookies, cake, and pies with the ever popular soft-serve ice cream. My niece had gummy bears in her soft-serve. I choked back the disgust at that thought and made myself a plate. A spoon of banana pudding, piece of no sugar added blueberry pie, and somewhere around a scoop of vanilla soft-serve. The pudding was terrible. The banana was too thin and the vanilla wafers in it were basically liquefied. The soft-serve was soft-serve, how can you go wrong with everything comes out of a box? The pie wasn't anything to write home about, but it wasn't too bad. No sugar added means that you could actually taste the blueberries. I couldn't finish the pie, I'd had too much by then.

One thing struck me as exceptionally odd about the Corral, they have servers to bring you your drink. Soda machines are incredibly easy to use, and they are at least no less hygienic than the rest of the buffet. Why pay people to walk around and refill drinks instead of just putting another station at the buffet? I realize that someone has to collect dirty plates, it's just an odd accompaniment to all of that self-service. Anyway, I left our server a generous tip for putting up with the five kids at the table. We didn't pay for 4 of the kids, they were young enough to eat for free, so it worked out to about a 30% tip for getting us drinks. I think she earned it.

Now I'm left to ponder this. I felt dirty eating there. I don't know if it was guilt because I enjoyed some of the slop, even though I knew it was horrible for me. Perhaps I've become a snob and I think I'm better than those that eat there. I like to think that isn't the case, but we are poor judges of ourselves. I'm not worse for this trip, certainly nothing a few days at the gym couldn't cure. I think what's eating me is that the money spent at this place could have gone towards cooking a truly good meal at home. I hope to make that the subject of my next post.

Monday 22 December 2008

Contributor Introduction: Dan

A 29 year old programmer living in New Jersey, married with a baby boy. I am not the primary cook in the house, but when I cook I try to do it right. My specialties are simple, easily prepared dishes.

My son is almost 16 months old now, it has changed my eating habits forever. Shortly after he was born my wife finally read about the hormones and drugs given to livestock. She realized that she didn't want our son eating that, and neither would we. We have dramatically cut back on our meat intake, and what we do eat is organic.

I will try to focus on easy recipes that can be prepared by a novice, like me. Repeatable recipes are also a favorite of mine, I like quick dishes and meals that you can cook in advance or in bulk. I hope to share my trials and tribulations as I teach myself to be a better cook and to eat healthier food.

Saturday 20 December 2008

Easy Vegetable Quiche

Quiche is something that my mom would make for family gatherings a lot and they always went over well. I really like savory pies of any kind, and quiches are by far the easiest to put together, so it's a win for me. I shortcut the crust with a Marie Callender deep-dish 2-pack, which taste great with quiches... they're not sweet at all and tend to hold up well to the hot ingredients being poured into them while still frozen. They're not the most amazing lard-filled flaky crust you've ever had by any means, but they get the seal of approval from me.


Anyway, this takes about 20 minutes of actual cooking/prep depending on what all you're putting into it. The best part about quiche is that you can eat it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and since the crusts come in a convenient 2-pack, you can make an extra one laced with poison for your mortal enemies to share. Here's the recipe:


A handful of spinach (which I tear up slightly before I add it to the pan)
1/2 average-large red bell pepper
1 shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 white onion, diced
1 jar marinated artichoke hearts

This is the egg custard mixture:

4 large eggs
1/2 cup half-and-half (you can use regular milk too actually and it doesn't turn out bad.. but just use the fucking cream)
pinch of basil
pinch of onion powder
dash of oregano
salt
pepper

This one was perhaps a little under-filled, mostly because I had less vegetables than I normally would.. and I normally fill these with bacon as well. Point being, adjust the egg/cream amounts slightly if you have less stuff inside the quiche.

Saute the vegetables together in some olive oil -- medium heat. Add the peppers and onion first, then the garlic, shallots, and artichoke hearts. Tear up the spinach after the rest has cooked for 3-4 minutes and is fairly tender and toss it in, cook for another minute then set aside.

Veggies into the crust. This is a good time to add cheese if you're a dairy person. I certainly am, and I added some Italian blend shredded cheese (provolone, parm, mozzarella). I LOVE goat cheese (or feta if you're making a Greek-style one) in this, but sadly I was on barebones supplies.

Pour the egg mixture over the veggies until it nearly fills to the rim of the pie crust. Quiches puff up a bit, but they shouldn't run over unless you really load it up. To be safe, I always cook mine on a pizza pan lined with foil. I threw in some extra cheese and baked the quiche at 360 for approximately 35 minutes.

As I said, I was short on supplies as I had been cooking for a work luncheon all week. My favorite quiches normally have goat cheese, bacon (lardons inside, crispy on top), artichoke hearts, spinach, asparagus, and red peppers... so customize the hell out of this. Seasoning the egg mixture is a must in my mind even though many traditional quiche recipes don't add herbs -- it makes the whole package much more flavorful.

Zorro was not impressed, but he eats horselips packaged as "savory chicken with rice", so I don't respect his palette.

Thursday 18 December 2008

KOLACZKI!!!


A few years ago there was THE BEST Polish bakery/ deli/ liquor store (that yes, had wodka (or "vodka" as you call it) in rifle shaped bottles) that made the most delicious kolczki. They were flaky, sweet, and came in pretty much any fruit flavor you could imagine, my favorite being apricot.

Before going GF, I often made kolaczki with sub-standard results. They always turned out cake-like no matter how I altered the ingredients and ratios. Over Thanksgiving I made a GF peach pie and the crust was like the perfect kolaczki dough! So, this recipe doubles for crust, too!

4 tbsp COLD water
1/2 veg. shortening
1 1/2 c rice flour
(I used 3/4 c Gluten Free Pantry All-Purpose flour and the rest Bob's Red Mill Brown Rice Flour)
Jam
Rolling pin

Heat oven to 350. In a large bowl, cut the flour into the shortening. Add water- depending on how dry it is, you may need more. Work the dough until there are no lumps of shortening and everything is well incorporated. Let rest in the fridge for about 15 minutes to firm up.

Wipe down the counters and dust with a good helping of rice flour- don't forget to coat your rolling pin! Take about 1/4 of the chilled dough and work into a ball and place on the floured surface. The trick to rolling without crumbles or tears is to start from the center and gently roll towards you, then away. Don't forget to work the diagonals! When the dough is about 1/4" thick, get a knife and cut 3"x 2" rectangles. If you find the dough is too dry and crumbling you can 1) heat the dough up in your hands and/or 2) add more water.

Take your rectangle and fill it with 1/2 tsp of jam, avoiding the edges. Take the bottom corner and fold it into the center, pressing down gently. Take the upper diagonal corner and fold it over the corner you just folded- it kind of looks like a cross between a pillow and a wrapped gift.

Place in oven 20-25min or until slightly golden and the insides are bubbling. Immediately place on waxed paper/ parchment/ tea towel that has been heavily coated in powdered sugar. While still hot, sift a copious amount of powdered sugar over the cookies and let cool.

Ta da!

Tuesday 16 December 2008

Meet the Cooks: Zeem

Hello all, my name is Azeem(nickname: Zeem)

I am currently a 20 year old medical student in london, but have decided to leave the course and go live with my lovely wife, Joy, in Colorado Springs, CO. I will then apply to a university there. I don't really like medicine anymore, so I'm really open to see what I feel most passionate about. Maybe even cooking.

My food tastes vary widely, but I grew up eating my mother's Indian food. My family has 100% Indian blood, but migrated to Africa before their present home in northwest England. My mom stayed at home cooking for my family, and had a large number of old Gujurati recipes passed on from her parents. She has adapted them to a much lighter style of cooking then you would find in most Indian kitchens. Less oil, Less fat, more taste. Her food is the best kind there is: food for the soul. While some dishes are more complex and take more time to make then others, anybody can make them and certainly get tasty results.

I will be posting some of these recipes later on. I need to get a handle on them myself first.

For now I am quite busy, but will be posting the more successful adventures in the kitchen I have with my wife. She first introduced me to the natural, organic, and local concepts in the food world, and I now absolutely love them. We try our best to eat only organic. Some of my favorite times with her are cooking in the kitchen, and it is reflected in the tasty and happy food we make.



To new cooking adventures!
-Zeem

Meet the Cooks: Zag

I stole this idea from Stumbleweed! Bah!

Well, my whole steez will be from a gluten free stand point. So, what's gluten? Its a protein found in wheat, oats, barley, rye and a few other grains that can't be digested by a good number of people (about 1 in 100). The results of eating gluten can be range from rashes to the poopski's -it greatly depends on the individual. In the 2 years I have been gluten free, I have assembled an army of delicious treats to make.

I have an affinity towards anything spicy, Asian, Spanish, Mexican, generally meatless with a wholefoods focus. I am also obsessed with dairy products and was recently given a ice cream maker for my birthday. As summer approaches I will be busting it out...


From the get, I will say that the Gluten Free Pantry makes AWESOME products. I recently made their "Spice Cake or Gingerbread" mix...doctored it up with additional spices (about tsp more of allspice, 2 dashes of cinnamon, tsp of vanilla) and was floored at how good it was! The texture was similar to Angel Food Cake, only a tad denser. Moist and gluten-free often don't go hand-in-hand..

Meet the Cooks: Stumbleweed

I'm a dude that loves food and will try anything twice. My favorite culinary area is Asia, though I certainly love Latin and Italian food as well. I'm a hobby cook, I used to work in restaurants when I was a teenager though -- basically, I worked in enough restaurants to know that I don't want to run one or work in one full-time. So I cook at home instead.

My favorite things to make tend to be one of the three categories above -- even when I'm not trying to make something Asian/Latin/Italian, it sort of turns out that way... so most of the recipes I post will be of this ilk. I'm a huge advocate of pork, soup, the use of food processors, anything dumpling-related, and curry. I tend to cook mostly vegetarian at home for whatever reason (don't want to dirty cutting boards and germ up my kitchen primarily), so many recipes will be veggie-only.

My other favorite thing to do is eat, so I'll likely profile some of my favorite restaurants/cuisine as well, most of which would be in the Denver area.

Saturday 13 December 2008

Blog Guidelines

Welcome to The Hungry Truth Blog! Below are some guidelines to help you get started posting.

Introduction Post
Start with an intro post telling us about yourself, and whatever else you would like to say about cooking, ect. Your post will then be linked to the "Meet the Cooks" sidebar. Also let us know what name/nickname you would like to have under that tab.

Content
The content of the blog doesn't have to be strictly recipes. Restaraunt reviews, Cooking Tips, ect. Anything interesting in the realm of food is more than welcome!


Try to be as specific as possible when posting recipes.

It will help everyone if you use specifics. If you have a great recipe but you don't have specifics, try making the recipe again and stopping to measure and time along the way. "Pinch" and "dash" are valid measurements.

Pictures
Pictures are always welcome as they make for attractive blog posts. They can be uploaded straight to the blog when you are writing your post(the little picture icon).

Categories
Try to label your posts with the correct categories: vegetarian, vegan, ect.

also, please remember to post your blog entries on The Hungry Truth Forum so further discussion can take place.

How to cook a steak by Andy Bandini

If you really like grilling steak I suggest you stop reading this now. I say this because if you cook a steak this thread's way, the iron skillet way, you will never want to ever grill a good piece of meat again. should you attempt grilling after following this recipe, you will weep endless tears for wasted beef and probably stab yourself in the thigh with your tongs.

everyone should have a cast iron skillet. they are cheap (like $20) and last a long time if you take care of them. most important: they are essential to cook a steak the best way.

when you buy beef, go to the butcher or the meat department, dont buy the saran wrapped stuff. those cuts are typically thin and suffocated by the packaging. get something with good marbling (thin white veins of fat) and a good layer of fat around the sides. I like top sirloin because its cheap and cooks very well this way. bone in steaks work, but not quite as well.

30 minutes before youre gonna start cooking, take the steak out and unwrap it. season it how you want (cant go wrong with fresh cracked black pepper and kosher salt) and let it sit while you do your shit.

figure out your vegetables or carbs and do that. preheat oven to 350.

put your beautiful, wonderful cast iron skillet on the stove top. turn the heat to high. you want the pan really hot. when its smoking and water boils off it real quick like then it is ready. make sure you have a watch with a seconds hand. push the steak together, smush it from the sides so it's compact as it gets, and get it on the skillet. if you have a thinner cut (3/4 inch) sear the steak on each side for 45 second to one minute. a thicker cut like the one i did tonight (bout 1 1/2 inch) can sear for 1 forty-five to two minutes a side. it will look like this:



after the second side has seared put the whole thing in the oven. this is the very important part. you must keep your eye on the clock. for medium/medium rare cook 3 minutes per side per 3/4 inch thickness (six minutes per side for 1 1/2 inch thickness). dont cook longer! remember if it is undercooked you can always put it back in the oven. (if you like your steak well done or even medium well, dont bother with any of this. this is meat for people who like meat, and it doesnt really matter how you make shit food anyway).

when it is done take it out and cover with foil and let sit for ten minutes. take the pan and put it back on the stove. you got all kinds of great juices and meat bits on the pan why let it go do waste? turn the heat back on it and once it gets hot throw a little water on and scape the surface. make any kind of reduction you want. i like adding minced red onion, sauteing it, adding wine and butter and then reducing it. looks like this:



take the juices that have collected under the steak and add them to the sauce. when it reaches the consistency to your liking you are ready to eat.

now, the reason why this is best way to cook a steak is three fold. first, the scorching heat on both sides seals in the juices and makes for a tasty and good looking crust. second, baking the steak allows for even cooking. and third, you have a pan of beef bits and juices just begging you to make into something wonderful. in the end it should look something like this (it's a bit overcooked) when you cut into it



sometimes i will saute my veggies in the juices with some butter and spices. it's whatever you want. tonight I baked carrots and red onion with red wine, extra virgin and a little butter. cooked some 5 minute couscous, added some of the wine/onion reduction to it and I was good to go. this is a relatively fast meal and a sexy delight.