A deviation

"I don't know how much ketchup; just add it until it tastes good." 

My mom is particularly good at making two things: salad dressing, and Bolognese sauce. The latter is my favorite dish of hers. She (and the rest of Japan) call this "Meat Sauce," I guess because of the ground beef.  Japan does a lot of deliciously wonky things with their pasta -- fish egg & butter, ketchup & deli ham, fermented soy beans, and so forth.  I know my mom's "meat sauce" is far from the authentic Bolognese recipe, but it tastes like home which makes it the most delicious thing in the world. 

I still do not how to make it taste like hers. But I get closer and closer each time I try.  Every time she makes it at home I STARE at her from the counter and try to eyeball the measurements.  But it's hard when she adds what seems like 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire Sauce, and then 30 minutes later she comes back and shakes a few more drops WHILST adding some more broth and it's like WAIT.  Please, one at a time.  And there goes a few more while I'm not looking. 

I don't have a recipe yet...but I will soon. 

Toriniku no Misoyaki

"What's a nice Jewish girl from New Jersey doing cooking Japanese food?" - AMY KANEKO

I'm sorry for 2 things: one, being lazy with the blog; and two, for the shitty picture. I hate it when a recipe turns out good, but my pictures can't do justice. Sorry this delicious chicken ended up looking like I burned it and then  coated it with clear nail polish :(  I try, I swear. 

In theory, I should know how to make Japanese food, but I do not. I spent 18 years eating it and 0 years helping my mother cook it, so that is why I am a cultural disgrace and now have to turn to a Jewish Jersey lady's cookbook. 

This chicken was good, and so so easy.  If I love anything more than the smell of garlic cooking in oil, it's the smell of soy sauce burning on a grill. Amy prefers white miso, but I used what I had (regular) and it was fine. 

Toriniku no Misoyaki (Grilled Chicken with Miso Glaze) 

Adapted from Let's Cook Japanese Food! by Amy Kaneko

INGREDIENTS

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs 

for the marinade:

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon Mirin

1 tablespoon Japanese Cooking Sake

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon peeled and grated fresh ginger

for the miso glaze:

1 tablespoon mirin

1 tablespoon sake

2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 cup miso (white or regular, but not red because it's much too salty)

3 tablespoons water

DIRECTIONS

1. Mix all the ingredients of the marinade, add the chicken and let it sit at room temperature for up to 2 hours.

2. Heat a stove-top grill on medium heat. 

3. Combine all ingredients of the miso glaze and mix well. 

4. Remove the chicken from the marinade. Place chicken on the grill and cook for 3-5 minutes. Turn it over, and brush with the miso marinade. Cook for another 3-5 minutes, turn the chicken over, and brush again with marinade. Continue to grill, repeating the turning and glazing, until the chicken is cooked through. It should be done in about 15-20 minutes.

Serve over rice or with salad! 

Bacon and Egg Salad Sandwich

"I've spent a good portion of my life searching for the perfect egg salad sandwich. I finally found one in New York City, at a deli on Seventh Avenue." - GALE GAND

Whenever I'm craving an egg salad sandwich, I default to the one at Starbucks, because that's the only place I can find one around my office.  But Starbucks seems to have pooled all of their excellence into coffee and muffins and left nothing for their egg sandwiches.  It looks impressive, all fat and eggy, but it's just lacking - sort of like the way Perrier is confusing to me because it's soda........but tasteless.. ?...

This one by Gale Gand is exactly what I crave - lots of big flavors, lots of color, lots of chunks.

And if you are wondering why I needed a recipe to make something as basic as egg salad, it's because I've never been able to properly boil an egg in my life, and I needed someone to walk me through it.
Nothing more humbling than looking down at an overcooked green egg. I get it, I am a novice. I get it. 

Bacon and Egg Salad Sandwich

adapted from Brunch! by Gale Gand

INGREDIENTS

8 hard-boiled eggs, peeled

4 strips bacon, cooked and chopped

3/4 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives

salt + pepper to taste

bread, for sandwiching

DIRECTIONS

Roughly chop the hard-boiled eggs, and throw them in a medium bowl.

Stir in bacon, mayo, mustard, and chives. Season with salt and pepper. 

Sandwich!

Macaronis Au Gratin Va Va VOOM

"As they roast, the dabs of butter melt into the mushroom juices and the hit of garlic, making a lovely, deep jus that seeps into the mac and cheese they rest on." - MARLENA SPIELER

At the moment, I am broke. I ripped off my driver's side mirror in an unfortunate incident of stupidity, so that is where a chunk of my holiday savings have gone. This explains why I skimped on the suggested 8 - 10 oz of mushrooms, and went with 6 pieces. I do not recommend it.  This dish would have looked ten times more spectacular if the entire thing was topped with a mountain of shroom, but I ended up having to scatter them far and wide... each an ocean apart from the other.

I also added procuitto to this already hefty dish because that is how I live my life -- in excess.

Macaronis Au Gratin Va Va Voom
adapted from Macaroni & Cheese by Marlena Spieler

INGREDIENTS

12 oz small macaroni (i.e. elbow)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
10-12 oz Gruyere cheese, shredded
4 oz heavy cream
salt + pepper to taste
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
8-10 oz medium mushrooms, stems removed and chopped
1 tablespoon fresh chives, chopped
4 slices prociutto, baked and crumbled

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 F. Lay the prociutto flat on a baking sheet, stick it in the oven, and forget about it for about 5 minutes. Take them out when they've gotten crispy.

Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted water until it is barely al dente (5 minutes for elbows). Drain, reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta liquid.

Return the hot pasta to the pan immediately, and toss with about a quarter of the garlic, chopped shallot, half the shredded cheese, heavy cream, salt + pepper, prociutto, chopped stems, and 2 T of the butter.

Add the pasta  liquid, and toss again. Add the rest of the cheese and toss one last time.

Spoon the pasta mixture into a baking dish evenly and lay the mushroom caps on top, smooth side down.  Cut the remaining 3 T butter into small sqaures and fit them into each of the mushroom caps.  Sprinkle with remaining garlic, and season with salt + pepper.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the mushrooms begin to brown and the juices collect in the caps.

Sprinkle with chives just before serving.

a little background

Welcome to my 7th blog! The previous six that I have tried to launch and keep up with have failed fantastically. But with Texty Food, I really feel like I found something I won't just abandon after one lazy weekend. So here's to a new year, another new blog, and a new resolution to Stick with it.

A little background about Texty:  I think all recipes in a cookbook should be accompanied by a photo.   It's inevitable that the ones without it are going to be neglected, because nothing is more inviting than a flashy, well photographed, professionally styled dish.  The photos in cookbooks are extremely glorifying! Cheese is always melted golden brown, the honk of meat is juicy (but not bleeding, which happens a lot when I attempt medium rare), and the chocolate ganache is perfect - not a single trace of a bump. I'm always bookmarking these pages.  The text-only recipes are so, so neglected. All they have are words, and more words, and most people are probably turned off by excessive text. Like this paragraph.

I started this blog so I can cook the texty recipes and give them the photos they deserve. I don't know why the author or the editor decided to demote them to visually boring pages, but it can't be because they're sub-par recipes. I believe that if they made it into the book, then it must be some sort of delicious.

My hope is that by giving these recipes a picture, it will inspire someone to cook it in their kitchen, or to start adopting recipes from their own pile of texty cookbooks.

And if you do tackle a "boring" recipe on your own -- please take a picture and send them my way! I want this personal blog to one day grow into a community project, and I'd love to have contributions. 

This is as wordy as my posts will ever get, I promise :)