Long John Silver's

I'd been craving for lobster for a while, so when I passed by a nearby Long John Silver's and noticed that they were selling these "lobster bites" a while back, I wanted to give it a try.

I finally tried it yesterday, and also bought some of their clam chowder--in case the lobster bites turned out to be a bomb, I'd at least still have some clam chowder.

Overall, I thought the lobster bites weren't too bad. You can really taste the lobster in the larger pieces, although much of the texture is lost. Still, if you're in need of a lobster fix, it makes a pretty good cheap solution.

Apple ice cream

I first thought about making this when I first had a conversation with Betty. I'd mentioned that I bought an ice cream maker, so she asked if she'd have many choices of ice cream when she visits me... anyway, she said she didn't have any favorites for ice cream, so I asked her what her favorite dessert was, and she told me it was fruit custard. Since ice cream can be frozen custard (if I use eggs), it wouldn't be a stretch at all to make ice cream with a variety of fruits. Two that came immediately to mind were apples and oranges (more specifically, mandarin oranges, AKA tangerines). I guess that's kind of cliché.

This turned out better than the tangerine ice cream I made earlier (I'll have to try and improve that recipe next time).


2 Granny Smith apples
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 lemon
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Peel and core the apples. Dice half an apple, and purée the rest. Juice half a lemon and combine with the diced apple, then stir in a little bit of sugar. Set aside and allow to macerate.

Combine the apple purée, sugar, cinnomon, salt, and vanilla extract with a blender on low, for about 2-3 minutes to dissolve the sugar. Combine with heavy cream.

Turn on ice cream maker, and pour in the mixture, as well as the sugar/lemon juice mixture used to macerate the diced apples. When the ice cream is nearly set (20-25 minutes in ice cream maker), add the diced apples. Continue churning for another 5 minutes, or until set.

Move to container and freeze for 2-5 hours for hard set. Earlier (or none at all) for soft serve.

Makes 1 1/2 quarts.

Tangerine sorbet

So since my attempt at a tangerine ice cream didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, and I did buy more tangerines than I needed for the ice cream, I went ahead and tried to make a sorbet out of the remaining tangerines.

Peel and separate the tangerines. I had five left, and puréed them two at a time. I also zested one of them.

This was about 1/3 of the way into the purée. The larger blades couldn't get it as smooth as I want, so I switched over to the stick attachment for further blending.

Blend in sugar (I added 3/4 cups, hopefully that's enough), a pinch of salt, and a little bit of lime juice. Then pour into ice cream maker. This is after about 20 minutes of churning. With the camera flash working, you cann't tell from the picture that it was still churning... So I took another pic without flash...

They spinnin', they spinnin'!



Post Script: Shortly after I was "finished" making the sorbet, I recalled that I had read a transcript of Alton Brown's Good Eats episode that talked about making sorbet. So I looked it up. In one scene, he says of making sorbet:

Sugar in frozen desserts is more than just a sweetener. See, once dissolved in the liquid, the sugar molecules actually get in the way of ice crystals forming. [...] Now, too little sugar and you'll need an ice pick to serve your dessert. Too much, and you'll have a syrupy mess.

So, the trick, if you can call it a trick, is in nailing the right amount of sugar. And for that, all you need is your trusty sucrometer. Lent yours to the neighbor? Never got it back? No problem. A few simple rules will do.

Now, when I want a scoopable ice, I go with 7 ounces of sugar, roughly a cup, to every 16 ounces of liquid by weight. Now that's roughly, uh, 30 percent sugar.

In short:

Low Sugar = Rock Hard
High Sugar = Syrupy Mess

30% sugar solution = right amount of sugar

My original solution only had around 20% sugar, and sure enough, it was rock hard by the next day. So I took my giant tangerine ice cube out of the freezer to let it melt, then I'm going to add more sugar, squeeze in a lemon or two to balance the sweetness, and churn again.

Maple ice cream

Several years ago, when my aunt Rosa came to visit us from Canada, she brought us some maple syrup. That's when I first found out that the typical syrup we used when having pancakes were actually only "maple-flavored syrup."

A few years ago, I bought some maple syrup while I was at Trader Joe's, but I've never had any chance to use it. After I got myself an ice cream maker, I thought maybe I could try using maple syrup instead of sugar... So here it is--homemade maple ice cream.


The flavor? Well, the maple definitely comes through, having used 3/4 cup of maple syrup. However, it also tastes rather familiar. It seems very similar to the butter pecan ice cream I used to get from Thrifty stores (which are now Rite-Aid stores). Without the pecans, obviously. I guess this explains why so many of the recipes online are for maple pecan ice cream.

Black sesame ice cream

So when Greg got back from Taiwan about three weeks ago, he asked me if I've ever tried sesame ice cream. Apparently he's had a chance to sample some during his trip to the far east, and it happens to be one of the things he liked.

Having never tried it, I can't attest to how it should taste, and I doubt I'd be able to find it at a local restaurant, but as I do have my own ice cream maker, I can always make my own, and hope it tastes as good as the kind that Greg had.

The first thing to do--get myself some sesame powder. I'm certainly not about to try and grind my own. Black sesame is often used as a filling in tangyuan, a Chinese dessert, so I guess that should serve as a good indicator as to how ice cream made from the same ingredient might taste.

After blending heavy cream, half-and-half, sugar, vanilla extract, and sesame powder together, it's in the ice cream maker.

Sticky chicken goodness

If you haven't already done so, go into your local El Pollo Loco restuarant and give their new "tequila lime" chicken a try. I've been eating these at least once a week for about six week now, at first just curious what "tequila lime chicken" would taste like, especially given that I haven't been too fond of tequila in the various mixed drinks I've had at home...

They basically either dip their regular flame-grilled chickens into their tequila sauce after the chickens are done, or pour sauce over them (I've seen them do both on different occasions). The sauce is at the same time sweet, sour, spicy, salty, and maybe a little bit bitter (since it's supposed to have some sort of tequila flavor).

When you eat it, beware: It will get messy. And you might get addicted. Betsy (my boss' niece, who I introduced the tequila lime chicken to when I first tried it) said that she could eat them everyday and not get sick of them. I think that might be a bit overboard, but it does somewhat remind me of a quote from So I Married an Axe Murderer regarding Col. Sanders (of KFC fame)...

Charlie: "Dad, how can you hate... 'The Colonel'?"
Stuart: "Because he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes ya crave it fortnightly, smartass!"

Homemade strawberry ice cream

Edit: This is what it looks like after I melted the original batch and churned it the second time. It's a deeper pink because during the melting and churning process, the strawberry pieces were "cut" smaller, so more of the red got into the mixture. It's much softer than before, although I still should have let it churn for longer.

Following the recipe that came with my ice cream maker, I decided to try and make some strawberry ice cream. Here I have a pint of sliced strawberries, macerated for 2 hours in 3 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice, and 1/3 cup of sugar.

1 cup of milk and 2 cups of heavy cream are first mixed with 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract, 2/3 cup of sugar, and all the lemon/strawberry juice used for maceration. Churn away, ice cream maker!

It says to add the strawberries in the final five minutes. The whole process is supposed to take around 25-35 minutes, so I was just waiting for the 25 minute mark, and checking the consistency of the churn, to pour in the strawberry.

Unfortunately, it seems the recipe they had yielded too much ice cream--the machine can only hold 1 1/2 quart of ice cream total. That means 3 pints. Or 6 cups. The process of making ice cream means that as your mixture freezes, the churning adds air and keeps it from becoming large chunks of ice, so as air is added, the mixture increases in size (anywhere between 25% to 100%). So we've got 1 cup of sugar + 2 cups heavy cream + 1 cup milk + 1 pint (aka 2 cups) strawberry. That's already 6 cups! There's still the extra lemon juice and air unaccounted for! WTF *&^#)*%!

(Why didn't I do the math beforehand? Stupid, stupid, stupid...)

This means that my mixture would overflow when I tried to add the strawberry, and it wouldn't get to the "soft serve" consistency I needed before I put the whole thing in the freezer to set.

What does that mean, in the end? Well, it tastes pretty good, but the texture is not consistent. Parts of it is soft, while others are hard. And the strawberry is not as evenly distributed as I'd like them to be.

Otherwise, it's not too bad. I suppose I can always eat away 1/3 of it first, melt it down, then re-churn the thing.

Next time, I'll decrease the amount of strawberries and milk/cream. That should make for a much more pleasing result.

"Premium" ice cream

Ever since I saw the Good Eats episode on premium ice cream, I've been thinking about getting my own ice cream churning machine to test out the recipe. And see how "premium" differs from regular ice cream. (Although, as it turns out, I have had "premium" ice cream before--Häagen-Dazs is considered "super premium" ice cream.)

So, on Saturday, I set out to the nearby Target and Bed Bath & Beyond (they're in the same plaza, which makes it quite easy). The mission: To find an affordable, easy to use ice cream maker. And if I find one to my liking, I would also need some additional items that I did not possess, but which are required for the making of premium ice cream:

1. Food thermometer
2. Large container (to chill and freeze the ice cream in)
   

The result is mostly a success, although I tried to add green tea flavoring to it, and failed. Many tea bags and powdered green tea packs later, I still do not taste any green tea in the ice cream. So it's basically a premium vanilla ice cream, with (if you can taste any) an extremely faint hint of green tea.

I also found a pack for making green tea ice cream. Just add milk and egg yolk. But with only 3/4 cup of milk, the yield can't be much. Most likely not even a pint. $1.99 for the mix, still need your own milk and egg yolk, it'd have to taste like heaven for me to not just go back to buying ready-made half gallons of green tea ice cream.


On a side note, it looks like Blogger has increased the maximum allowable size for uploaded images. I'll have to try the full-size pic and see what they come out as (at this point, I'm guessing 1600 x 1200) next time.

Chicken nugget redux

Tonight marked my 3rd attempt at a convection-oven baked version of Taiwanese chicken nuggets (鹽酥雞). It's a slightly different recipe that I found online (plus my own changes), and in my second attempt, I added eggs as a test, and also tried some with a batter. As I expected, batters don't work well with the convection oven, as they mostly dripped away (like the fat from the bacon). Aside from that, the eggs created a texture I didn't particularly like (probably would have worked better fried). This third try turned out pretty well.


My modified recipe:

4 pieces of skinless, boneless chicken thighs (or similarly portioned chicken breasts)
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
1/2 tablespoon of rice wine (FYI: 3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon of 5-spice powder
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of ground black pepper
5 tablespoons of sweet potato powder (coarse)

Small pinch of salt
Small dash of sesame oil
Chopped basil leaves (to taste)
Ground white pepper
Pam cooking spray or olive oil

Create marinade mixing soy sauce, rice wine, minced garlic, 5-spice powder, sugar, black pepper, salt, sesame oil, and basil leaves. Cut the chicken into bitesize pieces, and marinate for at least 2 hours (I let it marinate overnight).

In a plate or pan, fill with sweet potato powder. Take the chicken pieces from the marinade and coat each with the powder. (Most sweet potato powder packs you get from the Chinese market should be coarse, although there are also fine varieties--I made the mistake of getting these for my second attempt, without looking carefully at the package, so be sure you check the package carefully prior to purchase.)

Brush grills with olive oil or spray non-stick cooking spray. Bake in convection oven for 30 minutes at 400°F, turning over halfway through. If, after 20 minutes, any of the sweet potato powder are still white, brush with some olive oil to get them to "cook."

(Alternatively, you can deep fry the nuggets in peanut oil, heated to around 350°F, for about 5 minutes.)

Sprinkle ground white pepper over the nuggets, and serve.

Bacon-wrapped hot dogs

It's not as unhealthy as it sounds... really. Because I use the FlavorWave Oven to cook the bacon and hot dogs, most of the fat drips down and is never consumed. I also add some grilled onions to the mix for some veggie goodness. Of course, I'm not saying that it would be healthy to eat this everyday, but every once in a while, it's not that bad.

The reason I wanted to try this is because of a conversation with Betsy, my boss' niece, who's been coming into the office on-and-off for the past month or so. Like Candice, she doesn't like to eat onions--on several occasions she had to pick out the onions from the food that either she or her dad got her for lunch. So I asked her about it, and it's mostly raw onions that she doesn't like--she has no problem with onion rings, and grilled onions will depend on how they're cooked. This then reminded me of the grilled-onions and bacon-wrapped hot dogs I've smelled the street vendors sell at downtown L.A. (when I went to E3) and Hollywood. To me, what really sold those hot dogs, was the aroma of the grilled onions.

The "grilled" onions were made using extra-virgin olive oil, with a small pinch of salt.

As the hot dogs and bacon begin to cook, fat drips down from the bacon. One piece of store-bought bacon wraps almost perfectly around a piece of hot dog, so the combination works out great. I used Ball Park franks (they "plump when you cook 'em"), so the bacon around the hot dogs will become a bit too tight for 'em, and they'll split open starting at the tip. If you cook them long enough, they'll split right down the middle, splitting the bacon along with them.

The finished product. I didn't buy hot dog buns, so I just ate them off the plate. It would be easier to eat with a bun, though.

More FlavorWave action

I took my hands at trying a "baked" version of 鹽酥雞 (a Taiwanese version of fried chicken nuggets), inspired by the "Oven-fried Chicken Fingers" I saw on Ham on the Street on Food Network. As you can see from the dark color, I probably added too much soy sauce in my marinade. Otherwise, the taste was okay, though nothing spectacular. I'll have to try again some other time.