je suis juicy

having some sort of appliance infatuation with my new hurom slow juicer. when i was in los angeles last year, i was severely run down, anemic, and really unfit. i have a difficult time taking iron supplements (nasty combination of laziness, forgetfulness, and total nausea when ingesting), but i found that daily cold press extracted vegetable, root, and fruit juices were a palatable way of getting my essential nutrients and getting fit. ish.  pressed juicery snaked out my wallet innards,  whilst their juices...snaked out my innards. ew. 

unfortunately there isn't a juice bar on island that compares to the ones in LA, so after the major expense of the holidays i decided to invest in a good juicer, and i think i've got one in the hurom slow juicer. i really don't know much about juicers, but i do remember having one in the '90s that lasted maybe a week in my flat--i stopped using it because it was bulky, loud, had low output and was an absolute ***** to clean. i admit, the majority of my research was watching a bunch of youtube videos, but for the very short time i've had it (less than 24 hours, natch), i've been more than fascinated with it. it's compact, less than 10 pounds, the output has been more than adequate, and the best bit (besides fresh juice) is that it took less than 5 minutes to clean it properly. the first thing i tried out was a kale, fuji apple, ginger root and lemon combo, and it turned out great--far more vibrant than prepackaged juices, and instantly customizable to my tastes. and yay, kale. it is teh awesome. 

so, as i would like to do a little more blogging this year, you might find a bunch of strange extraction experiments on here soon. do you have a favourite juice combo? let me know in the comments below.  and happy new year!

cool and simple.

sometimes it isn't necessary to find a balance of flavours nor nuances nor complements. sometimes all you need is to beat the heat and get some caffeine in you. for this i recommend a scoop of coffee ice cream in a glass, topped with shaved ice, drowned in iced coffee (with or without milk) and then crowned with a heaping pile of coffee jelly. you know you want it.

herby quinoa with mango and eggplant.

hello, nenes! i just got back from manila, i might be able to eke a post outta that trip for you later this week. i just wanted to drop in, say hello (helloooo!) and give you a recipe that is waymazing, oh, you gotta try it. 

i am perpetually trying to eat healthier foods, so i've been stuffin' myself with lovely leafy greens and wholesome grains. however, one grain i'm sloowwwwwly coming around to is quinoa, which wiki tells me is a pseudocereal rather than a real cereal. which probably explains why i only pseudo-like it as opposed to really like it. it is, says wiki and maybe more credible sources, related to beets, spinach, and tumbleweeds. ah. so you say. hm. 

anyway, people (and maybe even wiki) say it's good for  you, so i've been trying to eat it. it's just a little too seedy for me to treat it like a grain, so i can only eat so much of it. i recently started reading heidi swanson's blog again, and in her reinvention of pasta salad, she drastically reduces the amount of pasta in the salad, and makes the vegetables the star. i thought perhaps i would take this approach with quinoa; instead of making it the main ingredient, i'd delegate it to the background for now, at least until i get a better grasp of this tumbleweed relative. 

one of my favourite recipes is from yotam ottolenghi's cookbook "plenty", which is exclusively vegetarian, but filled with recipes that are adaptable to any lifestyle or almost any environment. my guambat readers know how...quirky and erratic produce shopping can be here, so it's nice to know that there are tasty recipes out there that can accommodate our lack of variety that sometimes plagues us. the recipe i turn to often is one for soba noodles, aubergine (eggplant), and mango, which sounds funky--and it is! in an entirely good way--but gets its flavours from familiar southeast asian cuisines. you could wrap this up in lettuce or rice paper wrappers and be a happy island camper. i followed the recipe, with the only substitution being three cups of cooked red quinoa for the buckwheat soba noodles, to great success. the quinoa soaked up the vinegary dressing, and the slightly annoying texture was lost amongst all the crunchy herbiness and soft, fleshy aubergine and mango. good stuff, this. might even be good for you.

get the original recipe here! substitute with red quinoa, white quinoa or noodle of choice, should you desire.

weekend project: the PBLT.

i have to admit that since i've come back from werope, i've been a little sluttish with my eating habits, and haven't been eating very healthily. so i thought i would clean out the fridge and freezer, stock up on some beautiful, locally grown hydroponic lettuces, various local and not-so-local organic veg, lots of fruit juices and herbal tisanes, and gain some smug satisfaction that not only had i cleaned out my totally disgusting kitchen, but maybe clean out my totally disgusting body.

...and then i found a ginormous slab of pork belly in the depths of the deep-freeze and i threw out the weekend's plans and had an all-out-no-holds-barred porkfestivus. yeeeeeeaaaaaaaah!!!!

well, no. not really. the slab was only 1.5 kilos; even though it was a major pork-out, i didn't have enough to feed the village and set atop a maypole, but did have enough for a few waymazing sammiches and then some. 

the craving for the sandwiches came from not wanting to stand in line at san francisco's ferry building marketplace farmer's market for rolli roti's (in?)famous porchetta sandwich, and from local fave meskla dos's completely infamous PBLT (pork belly, lettuce, and tomato). i haven't had the SF sandwich, although i did overhear some visiting filipinos tell their friends they found it to be overrated in comparison to lechon throughout the philippines. i have had the meskla dos PBLT, which is made with thick, deep-fried strips of pork belly, lots of mayo, iceberg lettuce, and tomato on a slightly sweet hamburger bun. it was decadent and tasty, but i thought the bun, lettuce, and tomato were too soft to hold up against the robust meat strips, and there is an inherent chewiness to pork belly sliced and cooked this way, which is sometimes a little too much for me to appreciate. i enjoy it, but  it's a workout to eat.  of course, that didn't stop me from trying to cook it this way.

i watched the dudes at meskla dos make a PBLT, took notes on their method carefully: cut two inordinately thick slices off a massive slab of pork belly. chuck in deep-fryer until golden brown. slather an alarming amount of mayo on a soft white bun, top with slivers of tomato and half a leaf of lettuce, arrange deep-fried pork belly--which is twice the weight and over half the volume of everything else--on top, serve with a smile. i cut off two almost half-inch strips of pork belly from a partially frozen slab, sprinkled it with some sea salt and let it stand for about 10 minutes before frying it in an inch or so of oil, until golden brown (about 3-5 minutes). i left them on some paper towel to pointlessly drain off the excess fat as i assembled the rest of the sandwich: ciabatta bread was toasted, slathered on both sides with japanese kewpie mayonnaise, topped with a fistful of green oak and butter lettuces, and fat slabs of beautifully ripe tomato which i sprinkled with pink sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper. the ratio of veg to meat was about equal in this, and the ciabatta, while light, provided more body that the soft bun, and the open-crumbed yet firm texture would soak up the inevitable mayo-tomato juice-pork juice sluice that would come. it did, and provided another dimension of crunchiness to this already crunchy sandwich. unfortunately,  the pork belly's almost jerky-like texture still fought it out with its 'wichmates and left me struggling with a sandwich that distintegrated as i ate. i know some people enjoy the interplay but i prefer a slightly more harmonious structure.

i toyed with the idea of makin' mah own bacon, but that didn't last. i went for my tried-and-true: the easiest of peasiest nigel slater recipes for crisp belly pork roast. it involves a little bit of marinating, which gives the pork more flavour, a high roasting temp, which gives the skin its gorgeous and glorious crackling skin, and beautifully tender meat. the only difference between my method and the recipe in the link is that i omitted the five-spice powder, and only did a rudimentary scoring of the skin because dang, where did all my sharp knives go?!

 

the scoring also helps with cutting the meat into perfect-if-generous sized portions. plenty of tender, garlicky, almost sweet meat, with just a sliver of the rich and decadent crackling. this time the sandwich set-up was perfect: the toasted crunch of the  bread played well with the tender crunch of the lettuces and the occasional shardy crunch of the crackling, and the juicy tenderness of the roast pork married with the juicy tenderness of the perfectly ripe tomato. the ciabatta soaked up all of the juicy that went astray and yet kept its structure whilst keeping things tasty and tidy. result! i may never go back to a regular BLT again, let alone a "normal" PBLT.

***

a note: i've read a few posts on other guam blogs that declare "good" tomatoes simply cannot be found on island. not true. they are everywhere when in season, and not necessary in the traditional beefsteak tomato form. the variety that thrives on island is the cherry tomato, which are copious and abundant and as juicy and as acidic/sweet as one would imagine. the best ones that come stateside are also cherry tomatoes, but also super sweet grape tomatoes. if you absolutely must have a larger variety, check with the korean and japanese markets for the air-flown variety from their respective countries--just be prepared to pay a premium. if you need romas, well, you'd probably be SOL on those, but canned san marzanos can occasionally be found in the usually suspected markets.

coconut, sashimi-style.

it's coconut harvesting time in the homestead again, so expect a few coconut-based recipes here. although, i have to say, i prefer coconut mostly unadorned, and as fresh as possible--adding ice to cool coconut water and scraping meat straight from the nut is as much as work as i usually do, and is pretty much all that is necessary. however, it doesn't make for much of a post.

something so simple and something so lovely and unusual is to serve the coconut sashimi-style, cut into bite-sized strips, accompanied with a sushi-grade soy sauce and wasabi. the condiments transform the flavour of the meat into something akin to ika, or raw squid. no, it's not fishy, but it seems more savoury, milky, and slightly sweet. it makes a good palate cleanser if you are serving several types of sashimi, or a nice alternative for a vegan or non-fish eating member of your party.

top tip: use the youngest coconut you can find. the sweeter and softer the flesh, the better!

WIP: duck fat fried chicken

the title of this post doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, nor does one's mind immediately latch on to the meaning. it wants to rearrange: fat duck fried chicken? fried duck chicken fat? fried fat chicken duck? nay. i found a bunch of duck fat (yes, i believe that is the collective term) that was slated for something else, but somehow ended up in a cast iron pan, heated on a medium high flame until rippling. i don't know how much. maybe a pound and a half? inch and a half wet? ANYWAY, the chicken: small plump thighs, organic ok, wash, patted dry, seasoned with a bit of kosher salt and white pepper, that's it. 10 to 15 minutes on each side in an uncrowded pan, don't fuss, don't poke. read a magazine article, the newspaper, or tweet. drain on paper towel. serve.

with

a schmantzy condiment, a grilled tomato ketchup. you could pour a bottle of ketchup onto a grill but that would be messy. tomato halves and onions went in a grill pan with a smidge of olive oil, until a nice bit of char was achieved. they then went into this epicurious recipe, replacing the canned ones on the ingredient list. doubled the amount of tomato paste instructed for good measure, too. worked a charm.

and the chicken? crispy, shardy skin, juicy meat that seems saturated in duck fat. i called this a work in progress because although this was decadent and delicious and oh-so-delightful, i might try marinating the meat next time, or perhaps use an herby confit fat. can't see how it can hurt.

triumph of the ill (the aspic of evil)

don't ask. just a reworking of a recipe that should probably not have been reworked. thank bunchofpants for the delightful transcription which includes almost three pounds of frozen brussel sprouts, two cups of lima beans and a cuppa bleu cheese. what was i thinking?

these congealed salads of yore were probably based on dishes of weropean origin involving aspic--basically a savoury meat jelly, yom---holding together scraps of ingredients that were too tasty or too pricy to throw away but not enough to make a complete meal. i doubt these cold molded terrines were ever meant to be eaten in great quantity, a fact lost on the creators of this so-called danish garden salad and the classic ring-around-the-tuna. i understand that again, economy is at play but can you really be saving pennies when the result is really unappealing?

in an attempt to de-evolve (i don't think 'devolve' actually works in this case) the dish, i encased lima beans slipped out of their skin, finely diced zucchini, carrot and prosciutto, in a chicken broth-based aspic with just a tiny bit of gelatin, mixed in with a v. small amount of bleu cheese. however, there isn't an amount small enough that would make the bleu cheese work in this, it's a bad match with the spring-ish veggies and it even overwhelms the pork. the three tons of brussel sprouts are also a bad idea. however, even if neither were added, it would still be sort of blandular--a bland so bland that it actually hits a profound depth of nothingness. pretty, though.