Delicious Things to Eat
In addition to blogging, copywriting, editing and developing recipes for corporate clients, I am now writing a monthly roundup of top new restaurant and bar openings in San Francisco and the Bay Area for CitySearch. I'm also adding my "tips" for what to eat and where. It's giving me a great excuse to visit and revisit local restaurants. Here are some of the most delicious things I've eaten recently:
I'm crazy about pizza and I really liked the one I tried at a press preview of The Forge which is on the watefront at Jack London Square in Oakland, it was puffy and had those love crisp bits plus just the right amount of sauce.
The kitchen is also roasting entrees in their pizza ovens and serving some of the best salads around.
I went to Ssisso to try the fried chicken, but it was under seasoned and I didn't like the sauce. Thank goodness I ordered the seafood scallion pancake (Haemul pajeon). It was crispy, greasy and oniony and I loved every bite!
It was so good I forgot to order the "frozen khusterd" so I need to go back, also the dinner menu is somewhat different from the lunch menu.
Ok, I didn't actually eat at the Exploratorium, but it is opening in a new location at Pier 15 soon and in the meantime I got a preview of some of the menu items that will be featured at the Seaglass waterfront restaurant.
My favorite dish was this fantastic clam tortilla soup with briny clams and and creamy bits of avocado.
Butterscotch pudding at One MarketDid you know that One Market is celebrating it's 20th anniversary? I was at their anniversary party and enjoyed many favorites from the menu. A stalwart for business lunches, it's good to know the food is as good as ever and that their creamy butterscotch pudding is not coming off the menu anytime soon.
Bruschetta at Scala's Bistro
Scala's has launched a $9 after 9 (as in 9 pm) menu, offering cocktails, a carafe of wine, and a variety lot little bites like oysters and pizzettas for $9 each. My favorite bite? Hand's down the very seasonal bruschetta with winter squash caponata, black garlic aioli, La Quercia prosciutto, pignoli and mizuna. I loved biting into the soft squash with a zing of black garlic. This is as good a reason as ever to stay for a nightcap!
Grilled albacore tuna from St. Francis winery
St. Francis in Sonoma has a deluxe 5 course food and wine menu you can enjoy at the winery for $42. While I loved all the pairings, one of my favorites was this grilled albacore tuna with sweet potatoes, baby turnips, smoky bacon, garlic chips and ramen broth paired with their 2010 Sangiovese Caro Santo from Sonoma Valley. The bright acidity and red fruit in the wine really cut through the smoky, garlicky broth.
Now head over to CitySearch where you can check out more of my picks, and don't forget to vote for your favorite restaurants in categories like Burgers, Brunch and Burritos, you could win a "Dream Dinner" worth $250!
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Superfood Cereal Recipe
My latest weekday breakfast is what I am calling superfood cereal. It's based on a Canadian cereal I tried at the Winter Fancy Food Show called "Holy Crap." It's made from chia, hemp, buckwheat and some dried fruit and it soaks in milk for 15 minutes before you eat it. It tastes a lot like tapioca pudding with a bit of crunch from the buckwheat, though not quite as sweet as pudding. What's most amazing about it is how little it takes to satisfy. Just a few tablespoons of cereal and a quarter cup of milk and I swear for hours I am not even the slightest bit hungry.
While I don't think this cereal is a cure all, it is very healthy. Chia is a good source of fiber, protein and omega-3 fatty acids, buckwheat is high in the essential amino acids lysine and arginine and hemp seeds are rich in magnesium, potassium, iron, protein and essential omega-3, -6 and -9 fatty acids. I encourage you to change up the proportions to suit your taste. The possibilities are endless, you could switch up the dried fruit, maybe add a little coconut. Holy Crap also includes a bit of cinnamon and dried apples. Some other ideas would be to add shredded apple, flaxseed, vanilla, mashed banana or even juice instead of milk. Have fun and make it yours!
While I don't think this cereal is a cure all, it is very healthy. Chia is a good source of fiber, protein and omega-3 fatty acids, buckwheat is high in the essential amino acids lysine and arginine and hemp seeds are rich in magnesium, potassium, iron, protein and essential omega-3, -6 and -9 fatty acids. I encourage you to change up the proportions to suit your taste. The possibilities are endless, you could switch up the dried fruit, maybe add a little coconut. Holy Crap also includes a bit of cinnamon and dried apples. Some other ideas would be to add shredded apple, flaxseed, vanilla, mashed banana or even juice instead of milk. Have fun and make it yours!
Superfood Cereal
serves 1
Ingredients
1 Tablespoon raw buckwheat groats
1 Tablespoon chia seeds
1 Tablespoon hemp seeds or "hearts"
2 teaspoons dried berries, chopped finely
1/4 cup milk, any kind
Fresh fruit, optional
Fresh fruit, optional
Instructions
Crush the buckwheat groats either in a mortar with a pestle, in a food processor or place them in a heavy plastic bag and smack them with a rolling pin. You want them somewhat crushed, but not into powder. It's easiest to do this with more groats, then just measure out a tablespoon at a time after they are crushed.
Combine the crushed buckwheat, chia, hemp and dried berries in a very small bowl. Add the milk, stir to combine then let sit for 15 minutes to soak before serving. Top with fresh fruit if desired.
Enjoy!
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All About Chia
One of the biggest trends I saw this year at the Winter Fancy Food Show was the explosion in the number of products with chia seeds. I first heard of chia in a "ch-ch-ch-chia, the pottery that grows!" chia pet commercial and maybe you did too. But now chia is back and being touted as a "superfood."
Chia is showing up in everything from cereal to drinks, snacks, baked goods and even pasta. When soaked in any liquid it creates a gel that can be used in place of eggs, it also has a pleasant pudding like texture that might remind you of tapioca. Unsoaked the seeds are crunchy and find their way into granola, chips and more.
Chia seeds are either white or brown and virtually flavorless, but create interesting texture and offer a lot of nutritional benefits. A staple food of the Mayans and Aztecs, just one tablespoon provides 5 grams of fiber, 3 grams of protein, 6% of the recommended daily allowance of calcium and 4% iron. But it's a real powerhouse when it comes to omega fatty acids, providing 2282 mg of omega-3 and 752 mg of omega-6. Look for chia in health food stores.
I tried chia in a variety of products and really enjoyed them. I've also had fun cooking and baking with them. Here are a few of my favorite products using chia:
Bonachia pasta from Al Dente Pasta Company uses chia in place of eggs. You would not know that there is chia in the product and like all of Al Dente's dried pasta, the chia spinach fettuccini has the wonderful texture of fresh homemade pasta when cooked. Whether you are avoiding eggs or not, this is a great product and much less expensive than buying fresh pasta. I used it in a recipe I was working on recently and it turned out just great (I'll be sharing that recipe soon).
Mamma Chia makes fruit juice drinks with chia seeds that are plumped up and suspended in the liquid. They are refreshing, quenching your thirst while also taking the edge off when you're feeling hungry. They come in a wide variety of delicious flavors like raspberry passion, guava and blackberry hibiscus. If they were less expensive (about $3.99 a bottle) I would be inclined to buy them more frequently. Another chia product I really enjoyed trying at the Fancy Food Show was the Canadian cereal provocatively named "Holy Crap." I can say it definitely lives up to the name, it's a bit like eating creamy pudding for breakfast. Made with chia, hemp hearts and buckwheat groats plus some dried fruit, a little bit really fills you up. Because it doesn't have very good distribution yet, I created my own version which I will share tomorrow...
Here are some ways you can use chia:
* Sprinkle chia seeds on top yogurt or hot cereal
* Make cherry almond chia granola
* Whip up some chocolate chia pudding
* Use chia like poppy seeds in lemon chia seed cake
* Add chia to chili
* Toss chia seeds in a stir fry instead of sesame seeds
* Blend chia seeds into blueberry jam
* Use chia to make vegan chocolate chip cookies
* Make a chia cucumber salad
* Make pomegranate lime chia fresca
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A Chinese New Year's Banquet in Richmond BC
Many holidays are about friends, family and eating, but make that eating Chinese food and you're pretty much guaranteed a deliciously good time. The ultimate holiday when it comes to these three activities is Chinese New Year, which is like Christmas, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July all rolled into one. It's THE big holiday in China and pretty much anywhere there are lots of Chinese people. This year I had the great pleasure of celebrating a bit of the holiday with Stacey Chyau from Taiwan and David Lang from Hong Kong both of whom greatly increased my understanding of the holiday.
So here's a little bit of what I learned:
The preparation for Chinese New Year is very important, people clean their houses, sweeping away any ill fortune then decorating with plum blossoms and putting red paper decorations on windows and doors depicting themes like wealth, happiness and longevity. Red is a very lucky color! Even wearing it is lucky.
Lots of shopping is important too, because once the holiday starts it's time to eat and drink and not to be cooking (or cleaning). It's a time of year when Chinese people visit with friends and family and take a vacation. So about that food�
A Chinese banquet on New Years's eve or night might include some important symbolic foods such as a whole chicken, a whole fish and barbecued pork. Some people enjoy a banquet at home one night and at a restaurant another night. Because the holiday is celebrated for two weeks, you still have time to squeeze in some celebrating and celebratory eating!
I enjoyed my Chinese New Year's banquet at Fisherman's Terrace restaurant in the Aberdeen Centre with my hosts from Tourism Richmond. Our dinner began with a big platter of barbecued pork, roast pork, roast duck and other delicacies. Eating barbecued pork is a sign of wealth, since long ago only the wealthy could afford it.
Next was braised dry oysters with fat choy. Oysters are supposed to open the door to good fortune, in particular a strong stock market! Also the greens are symbolic of long life.
This was an unusual dish, with melon in mayonnaise and shrimp balls, similar to what I've had as dim sum, only coated in almonds. Shrimp indicate happiness and good fortune.
We had a whole crispy chicken which is important because a whole chicken symbolizes completion "head to tail" and seeing things through.
Our meal featured a lot of seafood, which was great because Chinese restaurants tend to do a fantastic job with seafood. Lobster was served with a consomm� sauce.
Scallops were served with mushrooms and other vegetables. Both lobster and scallops suggest regeneration and mushrooms, longevity.
Crab also represents regeneration, and it was served mixed with long noodles, representing long life. You might not see the crab, but the flavor was very strong.
The most familiar dish for me was the whole rock cod doused in soy, ginger, scallions and garlic. A whole fish is important because the word for fish sounds like the word for "surplus."
Rice is served at the end of the meal at a banquet, and this dish was fried rice in a lotus leaf wrapper. Rice represents fertility, luck and wealth.
For dessert we had a baked tapioca pudding with a layer of lotus seed paste. It was unusual to me, but very typical at banquets, or so I'm told.
Greens made a second appearance at the lion dance I saw the next day at the Yaohan Center, another mall. Martial arts troupes wear the lion costume and grab a head of lettuce hung high at the entrance to stores. Cai ching or plucking the greens is another way to ensure luck and good fortune. The greens are often paired with a red envelope, filled with money. Red envelopes are given to children or anyone who is unmarried. But anyone and everyone can pose with the God of Fortune, holding a gold bar, even a Canadian mountie!
My only regret is that I do not have a video of the Chinese dragons dancing to Gangnam style...
My only regret is that I do not have a video of the Chinese dragons dancing to Gangnam style...
Gung Hay Fat Choy!
Disclaimer: My thanks to Tourism Richmond for hosting me on this trip.
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Dan Dan Noodles Recipe
I love Chinese food but I rarely make it at home. I have a few favorite recipes, but I am definitely interested in trying more so I was thrilled to see Fuchsia Dunlop's latest cookbook, Every Grain of Rice which focuses on simple Chinese home cooking. I like the book, my only complaint is that sometimes more explanation of certain ingredients would be helpful; for example in my local Chinese markets I can find lots of different noodles, but some of the recipes just say "wheat noodles" or when I see an ingredient like celery I wonder, should I use conventional celery or Chinese celery?
I made a dish I adore and which is featured on the cover, Dan Dan noodles. While I have certain ingredients like both dark and light soy sauce, Chinkiang vinegar and Shaoxing wine in order to make this particular dish I went ahead and purchased some sweet fermented sauce and embarked on a search for find ya cai. Ok, this is where is gets complicated. I searched high and low at every Chinese grocery store I could find and there was no ya cai, a kind of preserved mustard green. In fact one store told me they hadn't carried it in a long time despite requests from restaurants. I did find lots of other preserved vegetables and Tianjin preserved vegetable another kind of salt pickled cabbage with garlic which I used instead. It's a delicious savory vegetable that adds a really nice texture to dishes and is fairly easy to find.
I adapted the recipe just a tiny bit, I didn't think the oil was necessary for frying the ground pork because it is so fatty anyway and of course, I had to substitute Tianjin for ya cai. I am going to keep looking for ya cai, but I am very happy to have discovered preserved vegetables and now that I have purchased several kinds I will be experimenting with them. They are inexpensive, come in many different varieties like turnip and cabbage and mustard green stems, and if you like salty picky flavors they are very appealing!
Note: if you can find ya cai by all means use it
Note: if you can find ya cai by all means use it
Dan Dan Noodles adapted from Fuchsia Dunlop
Makes 2 large servings
1/4 lb ground pork (I used fatty not lean)
2 teaspoons Shaoxing wine
1 teaspoon sweet fermented sauce (also called sweet bean sauce)
1 teaspoon light soy sauce
11 ounces fresh wheat noodles, medium thickness (not the very thin or wide ones)
3/4 cup chicken broth
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
1 teaspoon Chianking vinegar (also called black rice vinegar)
3 Tablespoons chili oil or to taste
5 Tablespoons Tianjin preserved vegetables (Tianjin is often available in a squat brown ceramic pot)
1/4 cup sliced green onions, divided
Heat a wok or large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add the meat and cook, stirring to break it up. When the meat is cooked, add the Shaoxing wine and the sweet fermented sauce and stir to combine. Cook until fragrant, but still juicy. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Heat the chicken broth in a pan or microwave, then add to a large serving bowl. To the broth add the soy sauce, Chianking vinegar, chili oil, the Tianjin preserved vegetables and 3/4 of the green onions.
Cook the noodles then rinse and drain. Toss the noodles with the sauce and top with the meat mixture and the reserved green onions.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I received Every Grain of Rice as a review copy, this post includes an Amazon affiliate link
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Comfort Food Cookbooks
Another book that recently caught my eye isBreakfast for Dinner. Clearly I'm not the only one to resort to breakfast for dinner on tough days. I love the quote in the beginning of the book that says "�eating breakfast, even if it's at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, is a sign that the day just begun and good things can still happen." The cookbook is divided into sections--main dishes, sides & starters, drinks & desserts. The egg, biscuit, waffle and pancake variations make perfect sense to me, though I think recipes like Cornflake Crusted Chicken Tenders and Grapefruit Risotto with Seared Scallops are a bit of a stretch. Just using cornflakes or grapefruit doesn't really make it breakfast. But whether you are looking for new ideas for breakfast or for dinner, there are lots of brilliant recipes like Habanero-Cheddar Bread Pudding, Scrambled Egg & Salmon Quesadillas and Bananas Foster Crepe Cake. 
Maybe it's just my love for potatoes, but another cuisine I associate with comfort is Irish food. Cooking teacher Rachel Allen's latest book is Rachel's Irish Family Food and it has loads of dishes that while nothing fancy are particularly appealing this time of year. I've bookmarked Ham and Egg Pie, Oatcakes, Beef and Red Wine Pot Pie and Whole Grain Shortbread. Many of the recipes are very simple and for things I'm not sure I really need a recipe for like Salmon with Capers and Dill, Slow Roasted Shoulder of Pork and Creamy Mashed Potatoes, but if you are just starting out cooking, are firmly in the meat and potatoes camp or are just looking for more options on St Patrick's day, this book is a good pick. 
Salty foods make me happy but imagine for a minute if you had to give up salt. How would you make food taste good? Sodium Girl blogger Jessica Goldman Foung has painstakingly experimented to figure out how to make some of her favorite foods without adding salt or even using salty ingredients. While I'm not giving up olives or blue cheese anytime soon, I learned a lot from reading her book, Sodium Girl's Limitless Low-Sodium Cookbook (with fab photos from fellow blogger/photographer Matt Armendariz). There are nifty substitutions plus tips and techniques for getting the most flavor out of food without salt using spices and garlic or garlic powder, umami broth and sometimes emphasizing the natural sweetness in foods. She even has cheese free versions of macaroni and cheese and quiche that sound and look very comforting. While this book is primarily for those who need to give up salt, there's a lot in it we can all learn.Disclaimer: This post includes Amazon affiliate links and I received the books as review copies.
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