Roy Choi kicks ass (and he's pretty cute, too)

I was reading this really amazing interview on CHOW today with Chef Roy Choi, and it really spoke to me.  I'm on the verge of my realizing my pet project, my penultimate dream (a patisserie!), and Chef Choi's words rang so true for me, and gave me a real sense of focus (and a good kick in the pants) right at the moment I needed it the most.

See, he talks about good food being accessible, being real, being affordable, being something normal people would eat on a normal day.  I love this attitude.  I'm all for haute cuisine, but I'm a big fan of reality, too.  He recognizes very much that most of the industry might really hate him for this way of thinking, but he wants to bring good, real food to everyone, not just an elite few (as he puts it, "Let’s go to our purpose as cooks: to feed people.")

Anyway, he also contributed a wonderful rice bowl recipe to the site, and it got me jonesing hard for one.   Being a busy mom who sometimes cooks two different meals (one to satisfy the picky family, and one to satisfy my own need for something awesome and different), I neither had time for a lot of work nor time to find a lot of ingredients, so I cobbled together my own tasty (simpler) creation, using Chef's ideas as inspiration.  All of these ingredients are available in most supermarkets.

Rice Bowl with Chicken, Tofu, and Chinese Vegetables
makes two nice big bowls
Active time: about 20 minutes  ||  Total time: about 40 minutes

Special equipment: food processor or blender

Sweet chili sauce
2/3 cup Thai sweet chili sauce
juice from half a lime
3 tablespoons orange juice
1 tablespoon chili paste (sambal oelek)
1 small onion, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon galangal or ginger, chopped (no shame in using the jarred stuff!)
2 teaspoons black sesame seeds, toasted (white are good, too)

Marinade
juice from half a lime
1 tablespoon good-quality soy sauce (celiacs, see note below)
1 tablespoon chopped lemongrass (again, nothing wrong with the jarred kind)
1 tablespoon sherry
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground white or black pepper
1/2 chicken breast filet, pounded to about 1/2 inch thick with a mallet or the flat side of a meat cleaver blade
150g tofu

Other casualties
2 shallots, peeled, cut in half lengthwise, and thinly sliced
vegetable or peanut oil for frying
100g bimi, Chinese broccoli, or plain old regular broccoli
6 baby corn cobs
100g bamboo shoots
2 cups cooked long-grain white rice; jasmine is best, and leftover (reheated) is just fine
optional: extra toasted sesame seeds for garnishing

Put all sauce ingredients in a food processor or blender; blend until thoroughly liquefied and mixed, about 2 minutes.

Stir lime juice, soy sauce, lemongrass, sherry, oil, vinegar, and pepper together in a wide, shallow bowl.  Add chicken and tofu and turn several times to coat both sides.  Let sit for about 20 minutes, turning mid-way through.  Note: nobody can make you eat tofu if you don't want to.  Just use a whole chicken breast filet and leave out the tofu.

While the proteins are marinating, heat some vegetable or peanut oil (about 3/4 inch deep) over medium heat in a wok or nice heavy skillet and fry the shallots until golden-brown and crisp.  Scoop out and drain on paper towels or newspaper.  Remove the tofu from the marinade and fry in the shallot oil.  Once it's nice and golden, let it go join those yummy crisp shallots for a rest.  The edges may brown more, but that's ok.

Carefully drain the oil from your wok (hot!) and toss in the chicken and remaining marinade.  Add the vegetables and stir-fry until the chicken is cooked through and nicely browned and the veggies are just cooked but still crisp (if you use canned baby corn and/or bamboo shoots, crispness is less of an issue).  Note: If the vegetables start to brown before the chicken is done, as is sometimes the case with a stubborn piece of bird, you can dish out the rice and start bowl assembly with the veggies, then add the chicken when it decides it's done.

Assembly: Slice the chicken and tofu into bite-size pieces.  Divide the rice in half and scoop into two bowls.  For the first layer of yum, put three baby corns and some bamboo shoots in each bowl.  Then make a layer of bimi and tofu, and finally, pile the chicken in the middle.  Spoon a few tablespoons of the sauce on top, and heap on the crispy shallots.  You can sprinkle with extra toasted sesame seeds if you like.  Put the rest of the sauce within easy reach on the table in case you need more.

If you're cooking for one, you can wrap the second bowl and put it in the fridge.  It will still taste pretty good the next day, and you've got a night off from cooking!

Note for celiacs: For a gluten-free version, substitute tamari (basically soy sauce without wheat) for the soy sauce, or kick the flavor up a notch by using fish sauce instead (and, as always, check the labels to be sure).

Once again, it's been a while.  I'm bad about blogging.  I never remember to take pictures of what I'm doing, and what with the Internets being such a visual medium, I figure that's not good enough. 

But you know what?

Grown-up books don't have pictures.  Lots of things don't have pictures.  So sometimes, my words will have to be your pictures.  Put that in your sippy cup and suck it.

I came across a fantastic blog yesterday and was so inspired to write something again.  This amazing pastry chef (her food really must be amazing, you can tell just by the passionate way she talks about it) writes some really wonderful stuff about desserts and kitchens and the people who make the culinary world go round.  The way she writes woke up some sleeping red-eyed beast somewhere in a deep cave next to a subterranean lake inside me.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes a few words can be worth more than any picture.

Yummy...

Mexican food tonight!  I really miss stuff like Taco Bell these days (yeah, I know...), so I figured I'd make some chicken quesadillas, TB style, and Mexican rice.  Both were yummy, though not really TB clones.  Unfortunately I wrote the recipes on my other computer (the one with no Internet connection, what an abomination in this day and age) so I will post it later.  For now, enjoy the food porn.

That's salsa, not ketchup.

I have a new friend!

If she keeps eating my rosemary, though, she will stop being a friend and start being dinner (she's nibbling on my kamperfoelie in that photo, which is budding beautifully this year).  Neighbor kitty certainly wouldn't mind, I'm sure he'd love a taste!  Our own pansy-ass cat is just scared of her (she's as big as he is), and wouldn't go outside when she was on the grass yesterday. 

My roses are all getting those pretty red shoots that mean they survived their first winter in my garden (and what a cold one it was!) and they want to grow some more; new seeds are ordered for this year's flowers and vegetables, and I've got big plans for my tiny front garden patch this year (brightly colored mixed sunflowers, blanket flowers, and hairy balls plants - yes, that's really a plant, and aptly named.  Google it).  The back garden is going in a more classical direction with shades of antique rosy pink, salmon, and green.  This year I've made sure that all my flowers do double-duty as cut flowers as well.

Ok, now I need to go spend some time cleaning up the garden, and then learn how to compost...

Wow, it's been a year already?

I'm ashamed to admit it, but it's been quite some time since I had the time or motivation to blog.  It has, in fact, been almost a year since my last post.  Wow, that sounds awful.  It kind of IS awful.  This blog means something to me, deep down in a part of me that most people don't see everyday, and I've really dropped the ball.

Gomen nasai/het spijt me.  I'll try harder (expect to hear tonight's about dinner later).

EDIT: Dinner didn't turn out well. The chicken didn't cook through, and by the time I put the food on the table and found out about it, I was too tired to fix it.  It's a shame, it should have been very tasty.