Out of the office

Sorry guys and gals, going away for a bit, so there will be no posts (unless me thumbs feel like typing on my phone). In the mean time I will be performing a chemical wash on the site, so no food and drinks please.

Chinapese soup

A Hybrid half Chinese half Japanese soup I made. That makes what I call Chinapese soup. Though I could have swap the beginning and end of each word and made it Japanese soup :-p . Started with a benito base, and added mirin, sake, some shiitake mushroom, seaweed, carrots, scallions, and finished it off with a couple of eggs. Not too many other ingredients. Was very tasty.

Mung beans in action

Just playing with the camera’s high speed shutter here. The mung bean dates back to the days of… oh, wait… if your looking for the usual history of food, not going to find it today. But to give you an idea of the amount of research I go thru when looking up a food item… the following is just a small snippet of info that I study and examine. (A special thanks to The Global Biodiversity Information Facility for giving me access to this particular information)

Species: Vigna radiata (L.)R.Wilczek
Amberique / Golden gram / Greed gram / Green gram / Mung / Mung bean
Status of name
Status
Authority
Details
User feedback
Accepted name
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS

Synonyms
Name
Synonym type
Authority
Details
User feedback
Azukia radiata (L.)Ohwi
Unambiguous synonym
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS

Phaseolus abyssinicus Savi
Unambiguous synonym
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS

Phaseolus aureus Roxb.
Unambiguous synonym
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS

Phaseolus hirtus Retz.
Unambiguous synonym
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS

Phaseolus radiatus L.
Unambiguous synonym
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS

Phaseolus trinervius Wight & Arn.
Unambiguous synonym
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS

Rudua aurea (Roxb.)F.Maek.
Unambiguous synonym
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS

Phaseolus radiatus var. aurea (Roxb.)
Unambiguous synonym
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS

Phaseolus radiatus var. typicus Prain
Unambiguous synonym
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS

Vigna radiata var. dublobata (Roxb.)Verdc.
Unambiguous synonym
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS

Higher taxonomy
Rank
Name
Authority
Details
User feedback
Kingdom
Plantae
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS

Phylum
Magnoliophyta
Class
Magnoliopsida
Order
Rosales
Family
Fabaceae
Genus
Vigna
Subordinate taxa
Rank
Name
Authority
Details
User feedback
Variety
Vigna radiata var. grandiflora (Prain)Niyomdham
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS

Variety
Vigna radiata var. radiata (L.)R.Wilczek
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS

Variety
Vigna radiata var. setulosa (Dalz.)Ohwi & Ohashi
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS

Variety
Vigna radiata var. sublobata (Roxb.)Verdc.
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS

Common names
Language
Name
Authority
Details
User feedback
English
Amberique
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS

English
Golden gram
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS
English
Greed gram
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS

English
Green gram
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS

English
Mung
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS

English
Mung bean
Catalogue of Life: Species 2000: ILDIS, 2001-06 Pasquet RS

Specimens/observationsIncluding records from: Australia; Burkina Faso; China; Comoros; Germany; India; Indonesia; Iran; Madagascar; Papua New Guinea; Peru; Senegal; Tanzania; Ukraine; United States; Uzbekistan
Service
Resource
All
Lat/Long
ANH DiGIR Provider (www.anbg.gov.au)
Australian National Herbarium (CANB)

Fruit and seed collection database (ww3.bgbm.org)
Fruit and seed collection database

GBIF-MNHN (Paris) (dsibib.mnhn.fr)
Phanerogamie

GRIN (198.77.175.232)
National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation

GRIN (198.77.175.232)
Southern Regional PI Station

Herbarium of the University of Aarhus (192.38.46.42)
The AAU Herbarium Database

Herbier de la Guyane (ceperou.cayenne.ird.fr)
Herbier de la Guyane

IPK Gatersleben Genebank accessions (ww3.bgbm.org)
IPK Gatersleben Genebank accessions

Missouri Botanical Garden (MO) (digir.mobot.org)
Missouri Botanical Garden

National Herbarium of New South Wales (plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au)
Plants of Papua New Guinea

National Herbarium of New South Wales (plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au)
NSW herbarium collection

Natural History Museum Science Database Collection (www.nhm.ac.uk)
Natural History Museum Science Database Collection

Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Herbarium (ww3.bgbm.org)
Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Herbarium

UK NBN DiGIR provider (www.searchnbn.net)
Botanical Society of the British Isles - Vascular plants database for Great Britain

He That Cooks blog

So my He That Cooks blog has officially opened. It is simply a supplement to my food blog for non food related blogging (would that make it a vitamin?). Basically anything I want to write about, since I can’t do that on Iron Stomach. Check it out.

For my frequent viewers, you will find always find a link to it on the right sidebar.

Rice

The two rice bags you see pictured are what I always keep a stock of in my kitchen. Probably the most used ingredient in my kitchen after salt. I typically always use the basmati for putting a curry, or some sort of liquidy Indian-ish or thai dish on. The nishiki is a short/medium grained rice, which I probably use more often for all sort of Asian dishes. I will use it for sushi, Korean, Chinese or Japanese types of dishes. Those are the most common types of meals I make.

Cowboy ribeye

Cowboy ribeye at Ruth's Chris Steak House... before


After

Gator meat

Alligator meat doesn’t taste like chicken, but it does look like it. I cooked this up the same day I made the kangaroo. I made a light seasoned batter and then a dipping sauce to have them with. It was surprisingly fishy.
That is all.

Kangaroo meat

Kangaroo meat is red just like beef, but much lower in fat and known to be pretty tastier. I simply seared a few kangaroo medallions on a hot pan with salt. Once on the plate, I topped it with a browned butter sage sauce (just butter browned in a pan with fresh sage leaves) (the pic is before the sauce). Kangaroo meat is best seared (as opposed to stewed) and this method was perfect without any crazy flavoring to over power it. It was VERY delicious. Impressively tastier than most cuts of beef I have ever had. It had a stunning gamey flavor which I loved, and other more pronounced flavors you don’t find in beef.

[A special thanks to Liz for pointing me to Ottomanelli's Meat Market in the west village who carries a few exotic meats]

Purple potatoes

Saved for the Inca kings, purple potatoes were some of the first potatoes harvested. Very creamy, firm, and purple. They cook a lot faster than most other potatoes. These ones you seen in the picture I a bunch of baby purple potatoes I got. I think the babies are much more buttery and flavorful.
I will tell you later how I cooked these.

Cumin!!

Cuminum cyminum. Cumin is an amazing spice! If I was thrown on an island and could only bring one seasoning with me it would be salt. Hmm, well, if I had a few more choices I would surely grab some cumin.
The word cumin is a deformation of the Persian city Kerman, where majority of cumin was produced at the time. Locally, Kerman called Kermun, became Kumun and then cumin in Erupoean languages. In addition to Persia, the cumin plant was as well first to be cultivated in the Mediterranean region. The bible, the Old Testament, and New Testament all mention it. The seeds have even been found in Egyptian Pyramids. Just as today we have salt and pepper on the dinner table, the Greeks kept it in its own contain at the table. Cumin symbolized greed and thriftiness to the Romans, which led to Marcus Aurelius getting the nickname Cuminus. In Europe during the middle ages, cumin represented fidelity.
Strong, heavy, warm and a spicy sweet aroma. Pungent, powerful, sharp and slightly bitter tastes.
Aliases: Jeera in India, zeera in Urdu/Pakistan, and ziran in China, cumino in Italy, comino in Spain, jintan puteh in Malaysia, and jinten in Indonesia.

The Japanese mortar and pestle you see holding the cumin seeds is my suribachi and surikogi. Originally, these were probably used to grind miso. Now-a-days it is most commonly used for crushing sesame seeds and other pastes. I use it to roughly grind various seeds.

Grilled eel

In Japan, it seems they consider things grilled when they are put in the oven…, well that seems to be the word they use from my experience at least. So that’s why I am calling this grilled eel. It’s the same eel I am holding a few posts ago. I marinated it in soy sauce and brown sugar, then cooked at 400 degree for a quick few minutes. The pic, is before its cooked.
Tasted great. The meat was very buttery.

Tea Eggs

More specifically these are jasmine silver pearl tea eggs, named after the jasmine silver pearl tea that I used. I always thought tea eggs were solely amusing for their look, but they actually are very tasty and the yolk stays soft and tasty. Tea eggs are one of many hard cooked eggs dishes cooked in China.

I cooked them in a mixture of tea, star anise, a cinnamon stick, soy sauce and salt in water for about 2 hours. I could taste the soy sauce, and a very delicate hint of the star anise, but I wasn’t able to pick up on the cinnamon flavor. Very yummy.

Update: The marbling on the egg, is a simple technique of cracking the eggs in the seasoned mixture.