thai red curry with chicken, eggplant, green beans and bamboo

i bought one of those super saver packs of chicken thighs a couple weeks ago and froze what i didn't use for that recipe (which was a simple pan-fried chicken recipe from the joy of cooking cookbook, very good btw). brainstorming ways to use up that chicken, and having had a great pork basil stirfry from a thai restaurant last nite, i decided to go for chicken curry tonite.

thai curry is relatively easy to make. it's a one-pot meal, minus the pot you use to make rice in. i think the most time-consuming part is ingredient prep. as i discovered tonite. but the result is a rich stew that will last you at least 3 or 4 more servings the week after. yummers.

here are the things i used to make my curry (from left to right): lemongrass, green beans, ginger, garlic, eggplant, cilantro, jalapenos, chicken thighs, coconut milk, thai red curry paste, bamboo shoots, and lime.

to prep, i sliced the eggplant into wedges, trimmed the beans, deseeded and sliced the jalapenos, rough-chopped the garlic, peeled a small block of ginger, minced the lemongrass heart, chopped half an onion, and chopped some cilantro.

in a large pot, i sauteed the onion, garlic, ginger and lemongrass in some hot canola oil.

once that started turning color, i threw in the eggplant. eggplant soaks up oil fast so watch it carefully or your onions will start to burn from having no oil left to cook in.

while the eggplant was coooking, i deskinned and deboned 4 chicken thighs, then sliced them into thin strips. you want them thin so they poach quickly in the curry sauce.

once the eggplant was slightly soft, i added 2 big tablespoons of the red curry paste and the can of coconut milk. at this point i was supposed to add a 1/4 cup of fish sauce, only to find that when i opened my cupboard, i had no more! argh. i had to substitute 2-3 tablespoons of salt. i also added the juice of 1 1/2 limes and about 3 tablespoons brown sugar. this part is really to your taste. the key is to taste after adding each seasoning so you can shape the flavor of the curry. to me, thai curry is spice-y (not necessarily "spicy" hot), slightly sweet, and a little tart. i also like curry with more body, not thin and soupy.

as that reduced, i added the sliced chicken thighs and left it to poach for 10 min. leave the burner high enough so it continues to simmer well.

when the chicken is almost done (i.e. no pink, and it'll take longer for thigh meat to cook than breast meat), i threw in the bamboo shoots (drained), beans, cilantro and jalapenos.

after another 5 minutes, the beans are warmed through and it's all ready to plate.

a nice scoop of rice is perfect for soaking up all of the tasty curry. garnish with cilantro leaves and you've got yourself a soul-warming meal on a cold nite, as it is tonite in sf.

overall this turned out pretty good. i think the fish sauce would've added a nuanced, undertoned note that you just can't get by adding salt alone. but the chicken was tender and moist, the beans had a tender snap, and the lime contrasted beautifully against the spices of the curry paste.

and the best part? i have enough for 3 more meals. leftovers anyone?

jalapeno beef stirfry

last nite in new york city's chinatown, i had a surprisingly tasty last minute meal at nice green bo shanghainese restaurant on bayardad street. as benji ordered beef with jalapenos, i thought to myself, whoa. that's gonna be super spicy. i couldn't imagine eating strips of jalapenos without reaching for a glass of cooling milk or even horchata. but when the dish did come out, it was a tasty, savory stirfry of tender strips of beef and sliced jalapenos that really weren't that hot. it was actually more akin to green bell peppers with a slight kick. and it was good. so good, that i recreated it tonite for dinner. so here we go.

i picked up a pound or so of skirt steak at the market after work, along with some jalapenos, an onion and garlic.


i then prepped the ingredients, deseeding, deveining and slicing the jalapenos, slicing the onion and thinly slicing the garlic cloves. i cut the skirt steak into thin strips as well.

i then marinated the beef with some oyster sauce, mushroom flavored dark soy sauce, a bit of sesame oil and freshly ground black pepper. i also decided to throw in a couple splashes of sake and mirin, in honor of all the great japanese food i've had lately.

in went the garlic into hot olive oil...

and the marinated beef, stirfried quickly for about 3-4 min.

i removed the beef from the pan and threw in the jalapenos and onions, stirfrying them for another 3-4 min...

until there was a bit of caramelization going on in the pan. i then tossed the reserved beef and sauce back in and...

plated! yum looking huh?

compared to nice green bo's version, mine was less salty but more oily. the beef was more tender than ngb's, probably because i used skirt steak instead of top round, which has more fat and is more tender.

i was really surprised by this dish. jalapenos cooked in this manner really aren't that hot and have a nice crunch and plenty of fiber. i wonder what other non-typical ingredients i can stir fry. that'll be a future post.

izakaya gamushara - japan meals part 3

i have been obsessed with izakaya for about a year ever since i purchased "izakaya: the japanese pub cookbook" by mark robinson for a couple of key recipes i used for a friend's dad's 60th bday bash last summer. robinson not only provides photos and recipes for countless japanese small plate dishes, he reveals the unique history and customs of izakaya culture through beautifully written passages.

izakaya is essentially a japanese pub, an intimate and typically "locals" or "divey" establishment that serves both alcohol and food, but unlike american or irish pubs, the focus is very much both the alcohol AND the food. all dishes are small plates meant to be shared over beer or sake (or both) and ranges from tasty little salads to impeccably fresh sashimi to perfectly charred skewers of meat and fiery hot stone pots of rice and seasonings.

i was simply hooked on the concept (i like food and i like alcohol) and obsessed with participating in an authentic izakaya experience. so when christien and i decided to head to tokyo for a week, i made damn sure we would go to an izakaya or three. for dinner on the second nite of our trip in japan, we trekked through the crowded streets of shinjuku district to sanchome, its 3rd ward. wandering down the dark paved streets, we came to a narrow and dark wooden corridor that led downwards. the black cloth banner above read gamushara in ghostly white. my first izakaya!

photos are great, but videos really tell the story. push play and watch as i descend down into my first izakaya...


the establishment was small, maybe about 500 square feet of dining space with low wooden tables and benches. behind us was an open kitchen and bar with bottles and bottles of sake lining the walls. it was pretty dark and tables were dimly lit by pin lights above.

upon seating, a waiter distributes the customary hot hand towel to refresh your hands and places small bowls of marinated burdock root and hijiki seaweed as a teaser, or amuse bouche if you will.

christien's friend, , a japanese native and food guide for the evening rattled off a flurry of dishes to the waiter. and the dishes start coming. first up, a fresh and tender salad of red and green lettuce, thinly sliced red onions, green beans and fresh corn lightly dressed in a citrus vinaigrette.

then comes a wonderful stew of beef innards and quail eggs nestled in intense broth. so delicious.
then gyozas, perfectly panfried on the flat side, moist and tender meat stuffed inside.

chicken kaarage was wonderfully moist and seasoned with a light, crunchy batter. great with fresh squeezed lemon.

chashu, roasted pork loin, was amazing.

then this came out. konnyaku. robinson describes konnyaku as a jelly made from the flour of the "devil's tongue" plant. it was weird and spicy on the tongue with kind of an unflavored gelatin texture. the sauce helped, but not enough to win me over. oh well.

fried wedge potatoes. omg. who knew japanese could make fries so well?! perfectly crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

takowasa. fresh, raw octopus, diced with fresh wasabi root, bathed in its own octopusy slime. this was absolutely stunning. the octopus was crunchy and tender at the same time, and the slime wasn't slimy. the wasabi root provided a nice firey bite. we ordered three of these it was so good. and i'm still searching for a place in sf that does this. found one in la. so addicting.

this was a stone pot that was placed on our table scroching hot, filled with white rice, pork, mushrooms, pickled vegetables, scallions and an egg yolk.

as the nite wore on and we had passed our fourth or fifth round of beers (i lost count), our food guide orders this controversy: raw chicken salad! what what? you can't eat chicken raw!! apparently the chickens used for this delicacy are raised on special farms so that samonella is very low risk. so after hesitating and much doubting, we popped our first raw chicken bits into our mouths.

oh, let me tell you: it was sublime. aside from the weird headspin you get when you try something you know you shouldn't be trying, this was very tasty. the chicken had a sashimi-like texture, similar to snapper (tai) and was dressed in a mayo/avocado mixture that really let the chicken shine through. surprisingly very good. i think i felt a pyschological pang in my stomach a few moments later as the "samonella" hit, but i never had any problems later. besides, there was just too much good food to focus on such trival things. that and all the alcohol in our systems probably killed every germ in its tracks.

now what's an asian meal without eggrolls? these were hot and crisp on the outside, creamy-laden with seafood on the inside.

ah, one of the last and most intriguing dishes of the nite. pregnant anchovies, deep fried. riveting choice of words eh? these were deep fried whole with some sort of vinegary garnish.

and yes, chockful of little anchovy babies... or in culinary terms, roe. crunchy on the outside, crunchy little bursts of roe on the inside. definite fan of this.

and so, after countless rounds of asahi, (or was it kirin? probably both, i can't remember) and over a dozen delicacies later (many of which we ordered 2nd rounds) we fork out that funny money and move onto a nite of more intoxicated merrymaking. i had so much fun here. great food, thirst-quenching, mischief-making beer, and the company of amazing friends, their stories, their smiles and laughter. this, i realized, is what izakaya is all about. thank you.

kirin ichinban, pocari sweat, gokuri and more drinks - japan meals part 2

when traveling abroad, it's important to stay hydrated. all that sightseeing, adventuring, and foreign land frolicking can really dehydrate a joyous visitor who just wants to cram as much tokyo tourism and underground escapades as he can in seven days. so to combat the nasty effects dehydration can have upon a happy camper, we found plenty of opportunities to get liquids while roaming the streets of japan.

japanese drinks are awesome. these people not only know how to make drinks of all flavors and textures, they know how to package and market them. ok so yes, you'll see a lot of beer in the pictures on this post. but hey, we were on vacation and beer is GOOD. take a looksee.

what better way to start a trip to a distant, foreign land (and wash down mushy acidic airplane pasta) than a can of kirin ichiban beer. light, bubbly and burpy, four of these on the 11 hour plane ride did very nicely, thank you very much.

once at our hotel a couple blocks from shinjuku station, we picked up a huge bottle of pocari sweat from the 7 eleven across the street. i liken pocari sweat to a lemonade flavored sports drink. it has about the same consistency and flavor.

small drink bottles kept us hydrated on the go. here, christien has a suntori brand drink. i think it was peach or something.

this bottle of gokuri was my favorite. grapefruit juice with real grapefruit bits in it. not too sour, not too sweet. super refreshing in an awesomely designed aluminum bottle with wide mouth twist cap.

as you walk around tokyo, there are tons of vending machines dispensing drinks. japanese vending machines seem to have a much wider selection per machine and each drink is nicely displayed. it's also just a lot of fun trying to figure out what the hell was in each bottle or can. sometimes we were right, sometimes totally wrong. as we were walking around shinjuku district, we passed by this sloping alley chock full of vending machines. made for a great photo. notice all the ads.

and what do you know! as we were walking past the machines, christien spotted his favorite j-pop star, namie amuro! she was quenching her thirst just like us foreigners!

while visiting the ginormous residential-business-cultural complex that is roppongi hills, we stopped in a modern, western cafe for some rich and delicious iced lattes. to sweeten the coffee, there were little pods of simple syrup (much like half & half creamers).

and as the evening set in, we settled into some innovative (and expensive) cocktails in the bar atop roppongi hills tower to watch the sun set and experience the tokyo lightscape come alive 100 floors below.

dinner at our first izakaya meant beer, beer and more beer. i can't remember how many pints of asahi we or i had that nite.

i know it was A LOT.

more mugs of asahi at a casual diner chain known for its gyoza (which were excellent by the way).

ah yes, another izakaya, another drunken nite. this time courtesy of two bottles of suntory whiskey for the five of us. yes, two. we finished all of it. curiously, the whiskey was served with ice spheres. they looked like crystal eyeballs. a little disturbing.

another beer. yebisu, which is a rich, malty premium japanese beer.

and more beer at another izakaya. i think there's a theme here.

on our super fast train to hakkone to experience onsen, japanese bath houses, we decided to cleanse our systems with some herbal and green iced teas, in preparation for our "spa" treatment.

but of course, asahi had to creep in and steal the show again.

and on our final nite in tokyo, at aria blu, a luxury 7-course, all-you-can-drink, all-you-can-karaoke in 3 hours establishment, we drank and sang our sorrows away with endless pitchers of beer, vodka tonics, and gawd knows what else.

so you see, we did a great job of making sure we stayed hydrated during our japan excursion. one thing to note though. japanese people do not walk and drink at the same time. people actually go into little cafes and quench their thirst while politely seated at a table or bar. they don't walk around with drink in hand like them heathen westerners. same thing goes for food. no walking and eating. in fact, we had the most difficult time finding public trash cans to dispose of our bottles and street food. yet the streets of tokyo are amazingly and clean and spotless.

oh you japanese. how do you do it?