I love my ramen noodle!  It doesn’t get any easier than just throwing a bunch of stuff in a pot and add some noodles.  Here is what I did for this bowl, and I’ll share my deep dark secret with you on how I flavor the broth.

Evie’s Ramen #131

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of soba noodles
• a handful of enoki mushrooms, cleaned
• 3 baby napa cabbage
• 1 medium carrot
• a few slices of Asian BBQ
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp beef broth
• 1 tsp veal demi glaze
• cilantro for ganish

Directions:

1. Cut your carrots into pretty flower shapes!  Very optional, you can just slice them, but I had some extra time and making carrot flowers is fun.  I first cut my carrot into a 2 inch section, make sure the bottom and top are flat as can be so the carrot sits up completely straight.  Then I cut V-shaped sections all the way down the length of the carrot.  This might take a little practice to perfect.  After you’ve cut about 5 or 6 Vs all around the perimeter, making sure they are evenly spaced, turn the carrot sideways and cut them into slices.
2. Boil 3 cups of water, add the beef broth and veal demi glaze.  This is my secret ingredient as of lately, it’s super flavorful in any broth!  I purchased mine pre-packaged but you can also make your own, it just takes about oh 50000 hours.
3. Meanwhile in another pot, boil 4 cups of water, this is your blanching water.  Add the carrots, baby napa, and mushrooms.  Blanch everything for about 2 minutes or however long to get your desired texture (you might like a crunchier vegetable for example).    Drain and set aside.
4. Poach an egg using the blanching water, or if you prefer poaching it in a pan you can do that as well.
5. To the beef broth, add the BBQ, they only need about a minute to warm up.   Fish the BBQ out and set aside.  We cook the BBQ in the flavored broth as opposed to the blanching water because we want to keep the meaty flavor.  If you don’t have any Asian BBQ, you can substitute fried thick-sliced bacon.
6. Add the soba noodles to the beef broth.  Follow the directions on your package, but typically the thin kind takes about 2-3 minutes to cook.
7. Assemble all your ingredients!  First using a pasta spoon, grab all the noodles out of the broth and place in a bowl.  Then arrange the vegetables, egg, and meat over top.  Last, pour the broth over everything but make sure it doesn’t drown, then garnish with cilantro.  We pour the broth last to warm the vegetables up again if they got cold, and add a little flavor to them before eating.

And there you have it, another pretty bowl of ramen.  I think if there was a most-ramen-eaten-by-a-single-person award category, I would probably win it.

Ohh look at him, a real shrimp that’s not processed, SO SCARY!!!  No my friend, do not be scared of this delicious sea-bug.  I will show you how to clean and devein Chuck here (yes I named him Chuck).  Why would you even buy an unprocessed shrimp as opposed to the nicely packaged shrimp in a bag?  Well one, a pound of giant shrimps like these will cost you ~$15/lb at the grocery store if you’re lucky.  If you clean them and devein them yourself, they are $5/lb at the Asian grocery stores.  For smaller shrimp, $3.50/lb.  It takes about 5-10 minutes to process them, definitely worth the time!  Plus I spit on those who lets a good shrimp head go to waste.  SPIT!  You have to eat the shrimp heads, suck the brains out, nomnom.  Ok if you are too scared to eat the head, reserve the head and peel for a shrimp stock, it’s got mmm mmm flavor.

First, rinse Chuck under cold water and give him a good shower.  Then take some kitchen shears and give his tentacles a good trim, and feel free to snip off the tip of the head including the eyeballs, who wants to look at eyeballs when they’re eating Chuck?  The spike on top of his head is quite pokey, so be careful when handling, take your shears and follow the contour of his head and snip it right off.  Think of it as a shrimp mohawk, and you’re the establishment and decided that he has to be shaven bald.   When you are done, your shrimp should look like this, no more eyes, tentacles fairly trimmed down (you can leave them on too if you like tentacles… ):

Now it’s time to devein Chuck.  This is the part where we remove his intestinal tract, it’s usually full of dirt and shrimp poop, so we really don’t want to cook that along with our shrimp.  First, make an incision right between the head and the body with your kitchen shears, about an inch long.  You can actually go the whole way as well and sometimes it might be very necessary if your shrimp has really dirty poop.  These were fairly clean and I only cut an inch to keep the integrity of the shell a little better during cooking.  You should see the vein after you’ve made this incision.  See where I’m pointing to it with my index finger?  That brown line there is the poop chute.

Now with your fingers/nails, grab a hold of the vein and pull it right out.  It helps to straighten the entire shrimp body when doing this.  If the vein isn’t coming out very easily with a little pressure, consider splitting your shrimp out all the way to the tail.  Rinse your shrimp under cold water to remove any residue.   This is what should be coming out.

As you can see, Chuck and his fellow shrimp did not eat a big meal before their deaths, so their intestinal tract is not that dirty.  I’ve seen much worse, where the entire thing is just black.  Gross.  It’s not harmful to you if it’s not cleaned 100%, it might just make your shrimp a little sandy and gross psychologically, but it’s not gunna kill you.

After your shrimp is prepped, time to fry them!!

Evie’s Salt and Pepper Shrimp

Ingredients:

• 1 lb head-on shrimp, cleaned and deveined and dried with paper towel
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 tablespoons corn starch
• a pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon kosher or sea salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon Szechuan numbing pepper (optional) or a few slices of jalapenos
• enough canola oil to cover the shrimp in the wok in batches

Directions:

1. Combine the flour, corn starch, and a pinch of salt in a large bowl.  Add the cleaned and deveined shrimp, toss to coat.
2. Heat up canola oil in wok, the oil should be about 375 degrees, but I just gauge it by eye.  It should not be smoking, and it should look hot and glossy enough for a proper fry.
3. Fry the shrimp in batches, 4 or 5 at a time.  I had about 14, so finished frying in 3 batches.  They don’t need to be fried very long, about 4 minutes should do it, lay the shrimp on a paper towel to drain.
4. Discard the oil and wash the wok and reheat.  Add the kosher salt, ground black pepper, and the Szechuan numbing pepper to a hot wok.  Stir for about a minute so the pepper can get a bit aromatic and flavorful.  Add the shrimp to the salt and pepper mixture and stir to cover, about another minute.  
5. Plate and Serve Chuck and his friends with sauteed pea shoots over rice!

Yay my food and wine magazine is here!  To celebrate, I made a recipe from it.  I went to SUPER FOODS and Dragon Star in frogtown last weekend and got about a dozen littleneck clams.  Except I think they were labelled wrong, and they should have been called bigneck clams, because they were huge.  Way bigger than what I think littleneck clams should be.  Aren’t they huge? (That’s what she said).  Ok maybe you can’t tell the scale from this picture, but look at the size of these clams compared to the thickness of the spaghetti noodles!

This recipe was super easy and I would definitely make it again.  The steamed clams were delicious, I paired it with some white wine (duh) and Sean was scared at first because he’s particular about some seafoods, but he loved this dish.  You might think this dish need to be salted, 1 pound of spaghetti and all, but the natural saltiness from the clams are perfect and this dish does not need any extra salt.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound spaghetti
• salt
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 2 dozen littleneck clams, scrubbed (or 1 dozen giantneck clams!)
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
• fresh ground black pepper

Directions:

1. In a large pot of boiling salt water, cook the spaghetti until just al dente, then drain well.
2. In a large, deep skillet, heat the olive oil.  Add the garlic and crushed red pepper and cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally until the garlic is lightly browned (~1.5 min).  Add the clams and water, cover and simmer until the clams open, about 5-8 minutes.  It took my gargantuan-neck clams about 8 minutes.  Discard any clams that don’t open.
3. I modified the recipe here by taking out the clams, before I added the spaghetti and chopped parsley to the  skillet and season with pepper.  I didn’t want to toss the clams with the spaghetti, it’s a lot easier to just take them out.  Toss over moderately high heat until the spaghetti absorbs some of the juices, about 1 minute.
4. Transfer to bowl and serve!

SEE HOW GIANT MY CLAMS ARE?  *snicker*

Sean liked this dish so much that he put it on the “lets make it again” list.  Maybe he will read this and copy down/memorize the recipe so he can make it and I can sip wine and put my feet up!  This dish is for 2 servings, and it seemed like a fairly small serving by just looking at the recipe, so I doubled the cauliflower.  I also didn’t steam it like I was supposed to, I just boiled it out of sheer laziness and didn’t want to create extra dishes :P  This is the 2nd out of the 3 recipes I grabbed from epicurious this week, the last is a carbonara but I’m not making it just yet, I went to SUPER FOODS and Dragon Star next door,  got a lot of Asian groceries, so that will be what’s on the menu for next week, I have crazy vegetables and I even got oxtail!!  But anyway, back to the lamb, it was delicious after I made a few minor adjustments to it.  I like my foods heavy on the spices, if you don’t, follow the original recipe here.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups small cauliflower florets (1 small whole cauliflower)
• 2 6-ounce lamb shoulder blade chops (original calls for 4-5 oz, but pfft what am I on a diet??)
• 4 teaspoons curry powder, divided
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoon all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup low-salt chicken broth
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 4 tablespoons mango chutney
• 2 large green onions, chopped, divided
• 1 tablespoon Sriracha sauce (cock sauce, rooster sauce, the garlic one that comes in the not-squeeze bottle, it has more flavor, trust me.)

Directions:

1. Boil cauliflower in enough water just to cover it all, until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer to bowl; sprinkle with salt and pepper.
2. Sprinkle lamb with salt, pepper, and 1.5 teaspoon curry powder. Heat oil in medium skillet over medium heat. Sauté lamb to desired doneness, 4 to 5 minutes per side for medium-rare. Transfer to plates. Pour off oil from skillet.
3. Make sure your skillet isn’t on fire here, or else you will burn the flour.  Add 2.5 teaspoons curry powder and flour to skillet; whisk 15 seconds. Add broth, cream, and chutney. Boil until thick, whisking, 2 minutes. Add cauliflower and half of green onions; toss to heat through.
4. Spoon curried cauliflower over lamb. Sprinkle with remaining green onions.

After the craziness of a 42-steps French recipe, it’s time to do something simple and fast.  I picked out a few recipes from the epicurious iPhone app and ordered groceries for them online.  First is this awesomely easy tilapia dish.  The yams are cooked in the microwave, fish takes about 5 minutes to cook, it can’t get any easier than this!  When you make this, make sure to fry up some extra pancetta because you will want to snack on it while cooking.  I really do like this recipe because it’s almost like a deconstructed fried fish, you get the crunchy, but not the heavy batter, this can be even healthier if the fish was baked or steamed.  A++ would make again.

Ingredients:
Recipe from epicurious.com

• 2 ounces thinly sliced pancetta (Italian bacon), chopped
• 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs (from French or sourdough bread with crust, ground in processor)
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage
• 2 pounds medium yams (red-skinned sweet potatoes), pierced all over with fork
• 3 tablespoons butter, divided
• 4 5-to 6-ounce tilapia fillets or eight 2-to 3-ounce fillets

Directions:

1. Sauté pancetta in large nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp. Transfer to small bowl. Add breadcrumbs and 1 tablespoon chopped sage to drippings in skillet; stir over medium-high heat until breadcrumbs are almost crisp, 5 minutes. Transfer to bowl with pancetta. Cool (reserve skillet).
2. Place yams on plate and microwave on high until very soft, 5 to 8 minutes per side, depending on size of yam. Transfer yams to work surface. Cut yams in half lengthwise; scoop out pulp and place in medium glass bowl. Discard skin. Add remaining 11/2 teaspoons chopped sage and 1 tablespoon butter to yams; mash until almost smooth. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
3. Sprinkle fish fillets with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter in same nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add fish fillets and cook until golden brown on outside and just opaque in center, 3 to 4 minutes per side. If necessary, rewarm yams in microwave. Divide mashed yams among 4 plates. Top each serving with 1 fish fillet, sprinkle generously with pancetta-sage breadcrumbs, and serve.

The only thing I did slightly differently is garnish with chives so the picture is prettier!  Did I mention how cool the epicurious iPhone app is?  It is, trust me.

Have you ever noticed that the longer the name is for an entrée, the more expensive it is?  Fortunately I made this myself so it didn’t cost an arm and a leg.   This also applies to how many French words are in the name, this recipe has no French words in the title, but it sure encompassed a lot of  French techniques.  After trying a true French recipe tho, I don’t mind paying the arm and a leg at a restaurant for anything with French words in the name anymore because wow, this took a long time and it had a lot of steps.  They pay a lot of attention to the texture of a dish – for example, all the vegetable were blanched separately, then ice bathed, then reincorporated with sauce back into the dish, giving it a crisper texture and a more vibrant color.  Is it worth spending an extra hour prepping for it?  Probably not, but it sure was challenging and thus fun to try.

Ingredients: YES THIS IS A LOT OF STUFF.

For the Marrow:

• 8 pieces of Marrow Bone cut 1.5 inches long
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• kosher salt
• canola oil

For the Short Ribs:

• 8 pieces of bone-in short ribs (~7-8 oz each)
• Red Wine Marinade (see marinade ingredients)
• canola oil
• kosher salt and ground black pepper
• flour for dusting
• 2 to 3 cups of veal stock – I’m omitting the recipe for this, I used a beef broth with a tablespoon of veal demi-glaze.
• 2 to 3 cups of chicken stock – I’m omitting the recipe for this as well, I used pre-made chicken stock.

For the Red Wine Marinade:

• 1 750-ml bottle of red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon is recommended)
• 1/2 cup carrots cut into 1-inch mirepoix
• 2/3 cup leeks cut into 1-inch mirepoix, white and pale green parts only
• 1/2 cup onions cut into 1-inch mirepoix
• 3 cloves of garlic, smashed
• 10 sprigs of italian parsley
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 1 bay leaf

For the Root Vegetables:

• 2 medium carrots
• 2 small parsnips
• 2 small turnips cut into 1/4 inch dice
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 8 baby leeks or small scallions (I used scallions)
• 16 white pearl onions, peeled
• 16 red pearl onions, peeled
• 1/2 teaspoon red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup tomato diamonds
• 3 tablespoons chopped italian parsley

For garnish and finishing:

• Canola oil
• gray salt (I just used kosher salt)
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped chives

Directions:

This is the exact steps I took to make this and this is my interpretation of this recipe, for the real recipe and more in depth explanation of why things are done certain ways, buy French Laundry Cookbook!

1. First Make the Red Wine Marinade by combining all marinade ingredients in a wide pot and bring to a boil.
2. Set it on fire and let all the alcohol burn off.
3. Set it on fire again and again and again until it won’t catch on fire anymore.  They explain that the alcohol in the wine cooks the exterior of the meat and doesn’t do much for actually marinating.  But if you ever watch Ted Allen’s show on the food network about food myths, he explains that you can never cook off all the alcohol, the most you can burn off is like 30-40%.  [end-science-nerd]
4. Let it cool and combine with short ribs in a big ziplock bag to marinade for 8-24 hours, turning it at least once.  I did about 20.
5. Prepare your marrow bones now by soaking them in ice water for about 20 minutes.
6. Push it out with your fingers after the soak, if it doesn’t come out, soak them in warm water for a minute and it should loosen.
7. Soak the marrow pieces in a bow l of ice water for 12 to 24 hours, change the water every 6 to 8 hours to get rid of the blood that might be in the marrow.  I soaked them until I needed to use them.
8. Preheat oven to 275 degrees F.
9. Remove the meat from the marinade and set aside.
10. Strain the marinade into a saucepan and reserve the vegetables.  I cut a hole at the bottom of my ziplock bag because I’m S-M-R-T.
11. Bring the marinade to a simmer and clarify it by skimming the gross stuff that rises to the top – this is from all the blood in the raw meat, yucky.  Remove from heat.
12. Heat 1/8 inch of canola oil in a large skillet over high heat.  Season ribs with salt and pepper and dust with flour, pat off excess.
13. Place meat in hot oil and cook for 2-3 minutes on all sides until well browned.
14. Remove meat to a dutch oven or an oven proof pot and make sure it’s only 1 layer.
15. Pour off the excess oil from the pan and return to heat, sautée the vegetables until carmelized.
16. Place the vegetables on top of the ribs evenly.
17. Add the marinade, and the 2-3 cups of chicken and veal stocks, the meat should be covered.  I would use 3 cups, more sauce is good.
18. Bring liquid to a simmer on the stove and cover it with a lid, or a parchment paper lid.  Transfer to oven, bake for about 4 hours or until meat is very tender.
19. Here you can start on your vegetable prep/cooking while the meat is making your house smell really nice.  Cut the carrots and turnips using the oblique cut.  This is where you hold your knife at a 45 degree angle, and turn your vegetable about 90 degrees with every cut, starting from the thin end.  When the carrot or turnip gets too thick, slice it in half or fourths, and continue cutting.  Keep the carrots and turnips separate.  Cut your turnips as well.
20. Blanch the carrots, turnips, and parsnips in boiled salted water that’s sweetened with a bit of sugar until completely tender.  Remove the vegetables and chill in ice water.  When they are completely cooled, drain and set aside.
21. Add the leeks/green onions to the boiling water and blanch until tender.  Remove and chill in ice water, drain when completely cooled and set aside.
22. Repeat blanching with white pearl onions, drain, ice bath, cooled, set aside.
23. Repeat with red pearl onions and add the 1/2 tsp red wine vinegar which helps to keep the red color, drain, ice bath, cooled, set aside.
24. Here you might want to curse the French in some French words because you are sick of cooking by this point and just want to eat some food.  Drink a glass of wine.
25. When your ribs are done, remove the meat from the pot and strain the liquid into a tall narrow container.  Discard the vegetables.  Don’t worry about the meat getting cold at this point.
26. Skim the fat off of the top of the braising liquid in the tall narrow container (tall and narrow so this step is easier), and strain it through a chinois until the chonois is clean.  I don’t have a chinois, I used a normal strainer, oh muddy chunky sauce, woe is me. Reserve 1/3 of the braising liquid.
27. Now you are ready to complete the dish and put everything together, finally.
28. Chop up your tomato diamonds.  Why are they diamonds?  Because they are pretty duh.  I have no idea.  To make tomato diamonds, cut your tomato into fourths.  then remove all seeds and insides so you’re left with the outer layer of the tomato.  Place the skin side down, cut it first into strips.  Then cut it on a 45 degree angle to create diamonds.
29. Add all your cooked vegetables (minus the green onions) into a pot, along with the tomato diamonds, add some braising liquid to just cover the veggies.  Warm them up gently.  Add the chopped parsley.
30. Reduce the braising liquid from step 26 into a saucy consistency (about 2 cups).
31. In a skillet that will hold all the ribs in one layer, heat up 1/8 inch of canola oil over medium high heat.  Place the ribs in the pan and cook until golden brown on all sides, for about 30 seconds on each side.  If your ribs are still warm, they will probably take less time.  Take them out and place in another pan.
32. Add the remaining reserved braising liquid to the pan, bring the liquid and ribs to a simmer, keep warm at ~300 degrees until ready to serve.
33. Cook your bone marrow at this time.  Drain and dry the bone marrow pieces and trim the ends of each to create a flat surface.  Salt and flour, tap off excess.
34. Heat 1/8 inch of oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot (not smoking tho).  If the oil is too cold the marrow will melt, if it’s too hot the flour will burn.
35. Cook the marrow pieces 30-45 seconds per end, then lay it down on their sides and roll them to brown.  The outside should be crispy, the inside should be gelatinous.
36. Now you are ready to plate!!  Use a slotted spoon and place vegetables on each serving plate.
37. Place the leeks/green onions in the braising liquid to warm a little.
38. Place the short ribs on top of the vegetables and spoon the reduced sauce over the sides so it lightly coats the meat and drizzles onto the vegetables.
39. Lay a piece of bone marrow over the top of each rib.
40. Sprinkle gray salt (or kosher salt) and the chopped chives over the ribs.
41. Top each with a baby leek/green onion.
42. Eat it with a lot of good wine, and not make another crazy French recipe in a long time.

Was it worth the trouble?  It was very delicious and the red wine marinade wasn’t as strong as I thought it was going to be.  It did however take a span of 2 days to prepare, but I’ve done the same for bread so why not!  It did enlighten me on why exactly French restaurants are so damn expensive, and why French techniques are used (although I’m still perplexed by the practical application of a tomato diamond).  Would I make this again, probably, but I will be taking a lot more shortcuts!!