Culinary Catchup

Omelet Rant

Last spring I had the opportunity to stay at a couple of nice hotels, one in Monterey, and the other in Santa Cruz.  The hotel restaurants also had good reputations.  I had breakfast at both and tried an omelet at both.

The omelets came out looking likes some sort of steamed or boiled egg product wrapped around some filling.

It didn't look like an omelet.

It didn't taste like an omelet.

Is this the new way to make omelets?  Is it an attempt to keep butter out of the meal?  I made the change from double folded to single folded omelets years ago because it made sense, I could put more filling in my omelet.  Occasionally I still put in a second fold, like in this one:

This has a ham and cheddar cheese filling.  Then I add Kimchi (same as described below) and Sriracha:

Is it any wonder that I don't much care for going out to eat anymore?

The Kimchi Breakthrough

I've been making Kimchi quite a bit, and eating most of it - my wife also enjoys the occasional bowl.  However, until recently I've been battling an odd bitter taste in it.  I don't mind a little bitter in my beer, not so fond of it in my kimchi.  

I tried leaving out random ingredients, but that didn't work.  Then I started to think about my source of chili powder.  

I bought a couple of bags from my grocery store.  BIG bags of chili powder you can find with all of the other south of the border spices.  There is California chili powder and New Mexico chili powder.  One is hotter than the other.  I have no idea how they are processed.

Then one day I looked at my string of hot chilies from our garden from a couple of years ago.  I have a really efficient spice pulverizer.  So when the last of my Kimchi ran out, I tried a new recipe:

1. 2 white onions, 3 garlic cloves, and 2 apples (cored and peeled) turned into a sauce in my food processor.
2. A bunch of regular red radishes (the daikons never look all that fresh or good) and an equal amount of carrots grated by the food processor.
3. A bunch of cilantro, leaves coarsely chopped.
4. 2 Red bell peppers cut into chunks.
5. 2 Napa cabbages chopped coarsely.  There should be some good 1 by 1 inch chunks in there.
6. 2% by weight of all these ingredients in kosher salt - no iodine in my salt.
7. 5 little hot red peppers pulverize in my spice grinder with about a teaspoon of white peppercorns.
8. 1/4 cup of high quality fish sauce.

Here is my little friend:

Kimchi being transferred from its 48 hour stay in the fermentation jar:

It doesn't look hot.  Lacking the 1/4 to 1/2 cup of chili powder, it doesn't turn red.  In addition to the red color, it is also missing the bitter taste, but still brings plenty of heat to the palate.  For some reason Kimchi seems to ferment faster than sauerkraut, so I don't leave it the fermentation jar for more then a couple of days.  This kimchi is so tasty I can eat it out of a bowl and not just as a garnish on my omelet.  I'm thinking I might try 8 chili peppers in the next batch.

Of Fennel and Beets

I recently discovered a recipe for baked fennel.  Basically, you slice the bulb into half inch chunks, spread them out in a pan, dribble olive oil on them and a sprinkle of Parmesan, bake at 375 for 45 minutes.  It was pretty good.  One day I didn't have enough fennel, but had some beets lying around.  Also I have this lemon bush that puts out lots of lemons.

1. 1 Fennel bulb
2. 2 beets
3. Olive oil
4. Lemon juice
5. Asiago cheese
6. Pulverized white pepper and Turkish Oregano (the same as I use in my steak rubs)

Dribble the liquids on the slices, sprinkle the spices and cheese on the top and bake as above.

The lemon juice and Asiago cheese take this dish to another level.  If you have enough fennel, just replace the beets with fennel and it is still an awesome dish.

Wild Bread

If you get into high hydration dough and capturing your own microbe culture for your leavening, then chances are you will discover Tartine breads.  You can find Youtube videos on it, New York Times' articles about them, it's a bit of a fad.  

I came into it obliquely and tried my own twist by using my Primo to bake the bread.  It keeps the heat out of the house in this rather warm weather.  I thought by adding a pan of water (for steam) that I could omit the requirement for the combo cooker.  I now use a pre-heated dutch oven inside the Primo.

It is very tasty and I haven't bought bread for many moons now.  I've even used it in my terrines.