makisushi

Kappamaki, cucumber roll, tekkamaki, tuna roll, so this is hybrid kappamaki-tekkamaki sushi rolls. 

One cup short-grain white rice is rinsed and steamed for 25 minutes on low heat setting  in 1.5 cups water along with two tablespoons rice vinegar and one rounded tablespoon sugar. Still covered, the rice pot is left undisturbed for an additional 10 minutes. So, thirty-five minutes total steaming. 

Wasabi powder is mixed with water to form a small green putty-like ball. 

English cucumber ↑, nearly seedless and long, cut into thin strips.  Ahi tuna ↓, yellowfin tuna, not the coveted bluefin tuna which are severely overfished. 

Wasabi smeared onto the spread sticky rice. 

battered chicken breast

This is part of a single frozen chicken breast, half of a chicken breast actually, but it sure is big even so. I thought it was two frozen together. It was very easy to see the direction the fibers ran so it was sliced against the direction resulting in short fibers. 

Vegetable oil is heated to 350℉/175℃

Chicken strips are dusted in seasoned flour and set aside. 

A batter is created using the seasoned flour, this time with a cold egg, a half cup of milk, and then sufficient cold water to thin the batter. One level half-teaspoon of baking powder to create tiny bubbles in the batter, and two large ice cubes.

 [There are several ways to lighten the batter besides baking powder. Cold club soda in place of cold milk and cold water, beer, baking soda combined with something acidic to create a reaction, ice-cold water and ice cold batter, various combination of flours with various crisping characteristics, including all purpose wheat flour, rice flour, corn starch, etc.]

Seasoned flour

*  three heaping tablespoons AP flour

* generous grinds black pepper

* 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

* 1 level teaspoon cayenne powder

Chicken strips cut from a single large half breast are dusted in that ↑ and set aside on a separate plate. The powdering provides a surface for the batter to adhere. Then liquid ingredients are added to create a loose dripping batter. Thick batter creates a thick dense coating. Thin batter creates a thin light coating. If you add too much leavening agents for the amount of flour in the bowl, then the coating will resemble crispy foam. 

Battter:

*  All the seasoned flour ↑ that was prepared to dust the chicken strips. 

*  1 cold raw egg

*  1/2 cup cold milk

*  1/2 cup ice-cold water (added in increments while whisking to a thin batter)

*  2 large ice cubes

Chicken strips cook really fast. The temperature of the oil drops when the cold chicken is added so keep the heat on to bring it back up quickly. When the batter coating turns golden brown then the thinly-cut chicken inside is fairly certainly done. Test a piece. The batter can always be adjusted along the way, thinning, thickening, more air, more cornstarch, flavor. 

chicken noodle soup

We're slumming it over here. This is the last frozen bag of chicken noodle soup prepared a long time ago.

The chicken pot soup is what my mother called chicken and dumplings. I wouldn't know this until later, but her dumplings were large square egg noodles. When I discovered real biscuit-like dumplings, soda bread that floated on top of the pot like a lid formed out of individual biscuits that joined together, I thought those were very good too. One time my sister announced she would  be serving chicken pot pie and then produced chicken noodle soup with large square homemade egg noodles. This caused momentary confusion because I was expecting an actual pie with a double crust.

This here is thawed from frozen and nearly mush after all of that but I sure do like it's thick brutish egg pasta. Enhanced with this Uni Kaas robusto, it's a Netherlands gruyere. It must have been on sale or something.

jalapeño omelet, berries

It's been twenty-four hours, that's like a whole day. The last meal was large and I didn't want anything. Actually, a day seems like a short amount of time considering the size of the restaurant meal. But now I am running on reserve energy and it feels dangerous. So this is breaking the fast finally at 9:00 PM. I must say, it is the most delicious jalapeño omelet I've ever eaten in my whole life. 

I put cinnamon on the berries when you weren't looking. 

The Keg Steakhouse & Bar -- LoDo

These photos were taken without flash in near darkness. The top photo is The Keg's classic New York, the second is their filet. They come with choice of potato and vegetables. 

The Keg's menu is broad without being ridiculous. Offered are sirloin, New York, filets, prime rib, with various arrangements of lobster and other seafood items, sauces and sides. They also offer straight seafood and chicken plates, a very nice variety of starter plates, soups,  salads and desserts.

The bread is delivered immediately. It appears to be individual rolls baked as a loaf, freshly baked and piping hot. The dough seems to have been aged. Crackly crust, dense crumb, white bread. It is very good.

My companion would have preferred to start with some kind of fresh fruit, but alas, the Keg is fruitless. 

The French onion soup is fine and I ate it to the last drop. It is very close to the real deal.  

French onion soup. Here's the thing as I understand it from paying attention to Julia Child as a lad and as I've experienced it restaurants that took pride in authenticity: onion soup is a peasant's meal, made from beef bones and a lot of onions. Stale bread is put to use, toasted. You will notice provincial French cooking found many ways to avoid wasting bread. The whole thing is jazzed up with cheese and baked to brown. So there are three stages, the broth, caramelizing the onions, baking the cheese. The kind of meat bones that are used are the kind you would toss to your dog. The bones are spread on a sheet pan and roasted until they spill out their marrow. the marrow burns on the pan. The burnt bits are lifted with water or with wine stovetop. This is the meat base of the soup. If the soup lacks little black flecks of burnt bone marrow, then it is not French peasant beef stock. You can imagine a steakhouse having on hand an abundance of beef bones. (The Keg's beef stock is undisturbed with errant flecks of burnt fond from marrow, a key indicator) Onions are caramelized slowly. A huge amount shrinks nearly to nearly nothing. They are sweated on low interminably until they turn brown. The process cannot be rushed, in fact, the process is continually slowed with additions of small amounts of water. The process should take at least an hour. Opposite from the bones, the onions should never singe or char.  The cheese that covers the bowl of onion soup that hold in my mind as ideal is roasted not simply melted, and floated on a crouton raft -- a toasted piece of old bread that absorbs the broth from the bottom and supports the Swiss-style cheese, usually a gruyere.

Bacon-wrapped scallops. 

Valet parking. Additional paid parking available across the street. Metered street parking.

One might not notice at first the place is huge. The modern sectioned off sidewalk runs the length of the warehouse type building, a third the length of the block. The full front of the building is a low metal fence with a tabletop surface to accept stools and  with lower tables between the tabletop fence and warehouse windows. The entrance is cut into the corner with towering doors fitted with outrageously tall vertical handles, features carried through to the interior.

The first thing you'll notice after noticing the women are gorgeous, so the second thing noticed, is a lounge to the left with a bar and television screens. Through a short passageway beyond a dividing wall the restaurant opens up and goes and goes and goes apparently forever. We were seated right in the front and I did not explore the depth of the restaurant, but as already noted it occupies the whole of the first floor of a third-of-a-block building. The dining area is sectioned. Each table is also sectioned so  intimate within a larger somewhat noisy pubic space. The leather booths appear new. 

There is a high ratio of staff to customers. Mostly female, very engaging. For example, I brought with me a wine aerator. (Our bottle of wine, one of the two house selections, was excellent and could hardly be improved by the aerator) The staff wanted to know what it is. Our waitress asked for a demonstration. If she was feigning interest, then she's an excellent actress. I told her a demonstration involves comparison before/after sips. Was she willing to have sips with us? Sure! Now where are you going to see that? I cannot imagine any other place not demurring in order to keep a separation between customer and staff. Her willingness to mix it up with us was charming. She expressed, at least, interest in the aerator, acknowledged its value even though its value there was negligible, inquired inquisitively about how it works, and insisted she must get one for herself. 

We noticed that with the customers too women outnumbered men by a significant percentage. We thought it odd at first. It was not unusual for each male to be accompanied with two or more females, and for females to be seated together and to walk in together in groups. Then we noticed the same was true for the whole area of LoDo. We did not know if that was just for that Saturday night of if it is like that all the time. Even late into the night, the whole area was crawling with people, all young and beautiful, well-mannered, and mostly female. The area, once rundown and neglected is now enlivened and sufficiently safe for women to cruise at night, purposefully it seemed, they had someplace specific to go. 

Fuji apple with Sottocenere

This is the truffle cheese described here. The cheese sure is good. You should buy some. I got it at a shop a block from my home, but for my next thing that has a cheese board, I'm going to call around and ask for Sottocenere, then whoever has it, if they do, I'll go there for everything. Because I want everybody to have a chance at knowing how fantastic this is.

This plate is to hold me over for dinner. I'm going out, but right now I don't have a clue as to where.

balcony chile plants

These were grown from grocery store chiles. 

beef filet, spinach and corn

Normally I would not bother with something packaged like this, but it was on sale, I think, and it was so cute I couldn't resist. 

I thought the blue thing was a pop-out thermometer, perfectly useless, so it was the first thing to go. Turns out, it is just a blue plastic pin to hold on the bacon.

Here's the thing: how can the bacon crisp in time for the tenderloin to cook to rare or to medium rare? Answer: it cannot. Therefore the bacon must be removed and given a head start, then put back on so its fat and its flavor can be imparted onto the tenderloin which has neither on its own. Or is the idea for the bacon to remain squishy. Ew. I hate that. 

Frozen spinach and frozen corn are thawed. A bowl is prepared to accept the spinach and corn combined with cheese and with an egg separated, the white portion whisked to stiff peak. Like a soufflé, except more casual than that. This is bowl 1 ↓, buttered and with grated Parmigiano stuck onto the butter. 

This is bowl 2 ↓, the thawed and squeezed spinach and corn, along with chile flakes, salt, and pepper.

A nick off the ol' wedge of cheese nabbed from the refrigerator cheese drawer. I have quite a good selection in there, this will do as well as any. 

Bowl 1 with the combined ingredients. 

Baked at 375℉ / 190℃ for 25 minutes. It did not puff up like a regular soufflé because there was only one egg white and quite a lot of vegetable material by ratio. A sauce was not prepared either. It is all very careless, just a little something to lighten the vegetables. I'll tell you what, though, with those two cheeses, the Parmigiano forming a toasty crust, it sure is delicious. 

surimi, yellowfin tuna, shrimp salad

Surimi imitation crab, yellowfin tuna, shrimp, combined with diced vegetables and homemade mayonnaise, mint.

Crab classic, how presumptuous. 

Classic crab is a crustacean with a tough carapace that's difficult to break through especially for little kids. They're like giant bugs that crawl around on the ocean floor. This is a surimi product made from Alaskan pollock, a white fish, smashed to smithereens and got up with egg whites, sugar, wheat starch, various seafood extracts, and a bunch of chemicals. I love it. 

But you know what that means, don't you? It means that since it is not real crab, something of a delicacy these days although they're still nothing more than seafloor bugs, and in fact just a plain ol' whitefish, that we might as well go ahead and jazz up our salad with other real seafood items, whatever we happen to have and whatever appeals to us in that moment. Scallops -- no, catfish --no, sea bass --no, flounder --no, salmon -- no. We have those things in frozen form, but no, not today in this salad. Why? Because I said so. 

I have two carrots on hand but they're rather thin. I'd prefer to use the Japanese slicer to shred a carrot but thin items are dangerous on that slicer. It's a mandolin type thing and the blade is hazardous especially with hard items. The carrot must be shoved through two blades at once, one to slice it and the other like a sharp comb to shred it. The other option is to drag out  a processor and mess that up, unacceptable for a lazy bloke like myself, just for one carrot. So I used the little plastic machine that cranks a vegetable through two blades face on, a regular blade and a sharp comb blade, to produce twirly vegetable shreds. It's fun. The thing is, the machine leaves a core of vegetable about the size of a pencil and my two carrots are nearly that thin, which doesn't leave much to twirl around and shred. 

Ha ha ha,  bloody wow. 

I didn't photograph turning the carrot so I looked at Google images for "japanese turning tool" to show to you the funny little Benriner tool, and the very first photograph that pops up looks awfully familiar. That's my work surface so frequently photographed and shown right here. Then I remembered I already photographed turning a potato or something so I searched this site, up there in the corner ↖ for 'benriner', and immediately saw this photograph, mine indeed,  turning a piece of daikon radish for this post about fried rice a long time ago. But now this photograph appears on another site called Bling Cheese which I never heard of. Somebody nicked my photograph, and now Google says, "this photograph may be subject to copyright." 

As if. 

Should I be mad or well chuffed? Tell me, because I am not in touch with my feelings at all. 

Whatever. 

My salad doesn't have any olives because I am sadly oliveless. So I used raisins instead. While I was at it, I put craisins in too. Also freshly ground ginger. Shallot, because I have two shallots sitting there and they must be used for something, otherwise, sweet onion or scallion. Red bell pepper because I had one in the crisper beginning to go wrinkly so I used the whole thing. My own mayonnaise made yesterday for a sandwich is quite good, but I debated about using plain lime because of the raw tuna. 

Fresh mint because it is there, otherwise cilantro. 

This salad is delicious, and I mean it. I ate half the whole bowl in one sitting, which is considerable. The other half must be eaten quickly because the tuna is uncooked, and fish doesn't last long at all, even when it is cooked. That means I must keep on it until it is gone and that suits me just fine. 

It could use some chile flakes. 

Plus I have delicious chile poblano soup from yesterday which I jazzed up various ways and extended with additional ingredients. I keep thinking of new things to put in it,  so I've been living high over here on amazing poblano chile, now Hatch chile,  soup and bright cold seafood salad. 

chile poblano soup

Con ajo asado!

Actually, there are Anaheim chiles as well as poblanos. 

You want to hear something? I'm bad. I made a mistake at the self-checkout scanner at the grocery store. I misidentified the chile types and charged myself for two piles of Anaheim chiles instead of one pile of each. Anaheim chiles are cheaper than poblano chiles by a dollar a pound or something. See? That's what they get for cutting corners by making spazzes such as myself be our own checker outer. 

ARTS !

Roasted until burnt all over. You can char these however you see fit. If it were legal for me to have an open flame grill then I'd go all Medieval on them and put them directly into the coals. Another option is stovetop directly on a gas flame or on an electric burner. Still another option is in a cast-iron pan. In any case, make them black and blistered. Then let them all sweat it out in a paper bag or a covered bowl, or roll them up in a clean kitchen towel. Then pick off as much of the charred skin as possible, and pull off the stem and the seed cluster. Flick it around or scrape it to remove loose seeds.

Ta-daaa. Init purdy? Yummy too. 

The super-duper high-powered immersion blender is employed to good effect here. It processed these clumpy piles in liquid handily, much more effectively than an actual processor. The resulting thick liquid is forced through a strainer to pick out any errant seeds and solid bits of debris like garlic paper. If I had a food mill, I'd use it here, but alas, for I am food mill-less. 

This soup is delicious with the customary especias mexicanas, coriander powder and cumin. I neglected to mention an odd piece of sweet onion forlornly chilling in the refrigerator was quartered and included in the simmering sauce. The remainder of the soup can be easily altered with Mexican cheese or masa harina. I am interested in seeing how I can change it. Who knows, maybe I can even improve it. 

If you might be interested in something unrelated to food wot I made then ate, the pop-up card intended for San Francisco was completed and mailed right on time, hopefully with a day to spare. The page describing the final card can be viewed here.