How to make a Dutch Baby without a baby daddy.

1. Pancake Mix
2. Hot Cast Iron Skillet
3. Oven.
Add those three together and a Dutch Baby is made.

In all seriousness, these suckers are surprisingly easy to make and incredibly filling...could be the dulce de leches bananas ... 

The best thing about dutch babies is that they're extremely versatile in terms of what you can put inside. I prefer to make mines sweet.

Here is the recipe, I got it from Alton Brown.

INGREDIENTS

• 3 tablespoons butter, melted and divided
• 2 3/8 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 1/2 cup
• 3 tablespoons vanilla sugar, plus extra for serving
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup whole milk, room temperature
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• Lemon wedges

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Place 2 tablespoons of the melted butter into a 10-inch cast iron skillet and place in the oven. Set the remaining tablespoon of melted butter aside to cool slightly. Wait 10 minutes before assembling the other ingredients.
Place the flour, vanilla sugar, salt, milk, eggs and remaining tablespoon of melted butter into the bowl of a food processor or blender and process for 30 seconds. Carefully pour the batter into the preheated skillet. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until the edges are puffed and brown. Sprinkle with additional vanilla sugar and serve with lemon wedges.


I just used regular sugar. 


Dulce De Leche Topping:
Marsala Wine
Bananas
Dulce De Leche Sauce in a can
Salt
Vanilla
Butter


Pan on medium with a pat of butter. 
Sautee Bananas until they're slightly bruleed and pour a splash of marsala wine and ignite to burn off the alcohol.
Put in a pinch of salt and splash of vanilla.
Put a scoop of the dulce leche sauce to warm.
Pour on Dutch baby and serve with some powdered sugar. 




HAPPY EATING! 

Give that Pork Belly a Rub a Dub Dub

For those of you who are avid Top Chef followers, you know what I mean when I say pork belly is a necessity. I have yet to watch a season where pork belly isn't featured! After watching so many seasons, I've decided to give pork belly a whirl, see what the fuss is about. Verdict: unctuous, supple, and melt-in-your-mouth good! 

I stumbled across this recipe for Yuzu pork belly. Yuzu is a very expensive Japanese citrus so I went with the next best thing...Lemons. Maybe next time I'll use a combination of both lemons and limes and see if that makes a difference. Overall, I like that the citrus doesn't make the pork belly taste as rich.

Personally, I think the best way to eat roasted pork belly is between Chinese buns/mantou with some spicy chili-hoisin sauce and some thinly sliced green onion. 

Using a vegetable peeler, I took off all the lemon peels without taking off any of the pith (white bitter stuff). Slice the peels if you feel like chopping or take it easy like me and put it all into a food processor. 

Combine table sugar, coarse sea salt into the food processor and pulse!!!!

Ingredients:

Pork Belly

Coarse Sea Salt

Sugar

Lemon Peel

Directions: 

Rub the belly with salt/sugar/lemon mixture and let marinade for at least 5 hrs ( I got lazy and skipped this)

Brush off extra salt crust when you take out from fridge

Preheat oven to 450 and put belly in for an hour to crisp up the skin

Turn the heat down to 250 and cook for another 2 hours. 

Take out let cool overnight in fridge and slice into 1/4 inch slices or thinner. 

I mixed hoisin with chiu chow chili sauce! Spicy and Sweet FTW!

Thanksgiving Turkey Pictures!

Moist Turkey Starts with a BRINE

Roasted Garlic

Basting is a MUST =) 

ENJOY =) 

Roasted Garlic and Italian Herb turkey

Food Associations:

Cayenne: spicy

Honey: sweet

Brine:salty

Turkey: DRY.

Ever since I was a kid, I've always found turkey to be really dry and very lacking in flavor. I've alway had turkey served one way, a strip of breast drenched in brown gravy with a side of bland mash potatoes. BORING! This next part is going to sound really egotistical and narcissistic but oh well. 

Turkey has never been that appealing to me until I've made turkey for myself. With proper cooking and season, turkey can be damn delicious! 

Why an italian herb bird? Well, if you've tried the deli sliced italian herb turkey at Trader Joes, you will know why! It is delicious and flavorful while the aromaticity of the herbs makes the sandwich utterly delightful! 

As the proverbial fatty kid, it would not be me if I didn't try to recreate that amazing bird for myself.

I plan on making this turkey again for the parents, I was pressed for time the first time making it for thefattykid potluck dinner so I wasn't able to take any pictures =( 

I soaked the bird in a brine used in Thomas Keller's Famous Fried Chicken. I cheated, I had left over brine mix and used that but you can make the brine from scratch! 

Thomas Keller's Brine Recipe

BRINE INGREDIENTS

Makes 2 Gallon

5 lemons, halved

24 bay leaves

1 bunch (4 ounces) flat-leaf parsley

1 bunch (1 ounces) thyme

1/2 cup clover honey

1 head garlic, halved through the equator

3/4 cup black peppercorns

2 cups (10 ounces) kosher salt

2 gallons water

(I added a cup of brown sugar used dried herbs instead because I didn't have any fresh)

Directions

In a very large pot, combine 1 quart of the water with 1 cup of the salt and the honey, bay leaves, garlic, peppercorns, rosemary, thyme and parsley. Add the lemon zest and juice and the lemon halves and bring to a simmer over moderate heat, stirring until the salt is dissolved. Let cool completely, then stir in the remaining 3 quarts of cold water. Add Turkey and marinate in fridge overnight.

Ingredients for Turkey (13.44 lbs):

3 bulbs of roasted garlic 

2 sticks of room temperature salted butter

1/4-1/2 cup of Italian Seasoning

salt

course ground pepper

1 lemon

1 small onion

Directions:

Roasted garlic: chop off tops of the garlic and drizzle with olive oil, put in foil pouch and bake at 400F for 45mins. Let garlic cook, squeeze out of bulbs

Mash the garlic, butter, herb, salt, and pepper to a paste. Taste and adjust seasoning accordingly! 

Take turkey out of brine and rinse with water and dry.

Gently separate and create space between the meat and skin. BE CAREFUL NOT TO TEAR THE SKIN! Create space and gently distribute the butter underneath the skin and meat. Don't forget to save some butter to slather on the outside of the turkey. 

Cut lemon and onion into wedges and stuff into cavity of the turkey. 

Cover turkey tightly with foil and bake at 350F

I baked the turkey (13.44lbs) for two hours at 350F and then baked it uncovered for 30 mins to allow skin to crispy up. If one area browns too quickly, cover the area with foil. 

Pictures to follow after I make the turkey for parents!

POKE: n. (pou-kei) Hawaiian Raw Fish Salad

Tuna.....Single handedly one of the most expensive and revered fish in fishing. There are billions of dollars spent in Japan's fish auction market daily for prized tuna! With that said, if you happen to be friends with awesome fishing savvy friends, you definitely get the high end of the stick! I just want to formally thank Shane Chua for catching such amazing tuna in Mexico. The gorgeous gorgeous red color....sighhhh. Magical I tell ya!

I do have to say that even though I now own a fillet knife, I still do not know how to fillet the skin off the fish!!!!
Despite having "challenges" with that. I still manage to get it done without wasting too much of the meat.

Ingredients
2lbs or however much you want of bitesize Tuna or any fish you want to use. 
1Tablespoon grated ginger
1 1/2 cloves of grated garlic ( i had huge garlic nubs)
2 stalks of green onion
3 teaspoon sugar
3/4 cup aloha shoyu
couple dashes of mirin
1 tablespoon unseasoned rice wine vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
1 Tablespoon of toasted sesame seeds
3 bulbs of shallots thinly sliced or use regular yellow or maui onions
chili oil (optional)

Directions:
Pour sauce over bite size pieces of tuna  and shallots
Marinade in fridge for 15 mins or so.
I two batches of the sauce. one batch to marinade the fish and the second batch to drizzle over the fish.

Serve over hot rice or eat as is! =)