Osteria Morini

Osteria Morini opened a year ago, I went twice the first month and LOVED it! I haven't been back since, there are just too many great restaurants in NY...

So it was great to go back to an old favorite last Friday. We walked in at 6:30pm, the place was already half packed but we were lead to a table in the center of the restaurant right away. No wait, check!

We (I) decided to start with two appetizers, and share a pasta dish and an entree...

Appetizer course:
Mare $12
adriatic style seafood salad, olives, lemon, and capers


Fegatini $13
duck liver mousse, passito wine and grilled crostini


Pasta course:
Garganelli $19
pasta quills, batterkill cream, truffle butter and proscuitto


Entree course:
special of the day - grilled lmab should blades

See top. God, this was one of the best lamb chops I ever had, juicy, flavorful, lamby and soo soo tender!

Antipasta Dish

I love tapas, appetizers, antipasta, snacks, small plates, sharings....etc

Basically I like variety. That's why I love the Hot & Cold appetizer platter at Uncle Nick's Ouzaria in Hell's Kitchen.

This thing has a ton of stuff going on: grilled shrimps, olives, grilled sausages, feta salad, grilled zucchini and eggplant, calamari and shrimp seafood salad, grilled chicken, potato salad, spinach pie, stuffed grape leaves, pickled peppers, 3 bean salad... almost all my favorite foods!

Red Cooked Pork

There's no dish more famous in Shanghai than Red Cooked Pork, yes, the name in translation is horrible. But what can you do? At least the dish tastes good.

Red Cooked Pork is the dish that any self-respecting Shanghainese housewife knows how to cook. And there are so many variations and every family has it's own thing. Kinda like how fried chicken is treated in the South.

Anyway, the basic includes:

pork bellies
lite soy sauce for taste
dark soy sauce for color
rock sugar for the caramelized sugary, savory taste
ginger and scallion

that's it.

Now, there are always ways to improve upon the classic... why not add fried tofu to absorb some of that porky good sauce? and traditionally eggs are also added to stretch the meal and also provide a different texture contrast. But eggs can be boring and they are huge so that means the flavor never really reach the center. So why not add quail eggs? Who doesn't love quail eggs? They are so poppable, just like pringles!!

Being me, I also added some sake to bring out the heavenly scent of meat cooked with wine... now THAT'S love.

Trestle on Tenth

Restaurants are a funny thing. There are moments where everything is perfect, the chef is at top of his game, the wait staff is not hurried and can dedicate just the right amount of attention to you, and most importantly, you order precisely the right thing for you at the right time. The last part is where so many ppl run into problems, and who can blame them? It's hard to order precisely the right appetizer to share, with the right entree catered to that individual's precise desire at that moment and not to mention the right amount of food... so that's why I love it during those rare moments when everything turns out perfectly... precisely perfectly. :)

Trestle on Tenth is one of those restaurants that I really enjoy - affordable, neighborhoody and relaxed. I happily go there versus Daniel or Per Se (more on those later).

To start we shared a simple country pate, so shockingly good at just $5. Picture on Top


Then it was crispy Belgium waffles with caramelized apples and maple syrup creme for me... $10.50


And Leg of Lamb with morels, fingerling potatoes and two eggs, sunny side up $16... he definitely won today's who-ordered-the-best-dish contest

Broiled Vietnamese Pork chops

I love Vietnamese food! And I don't care what anyone says, NY has pretty decent viet food. Yes, I have been to Houston and Cali... whatever, I like my pho here!

And I love the grilled pork chops, they were actually an obsession in college, I used to drive (or make someone else drive) for hours so I can get some pork chops and spring rolls. hell yeah!

So why not make them at home? If you can't bbq (and who can in manhattan?) broiling is the next best thing. So I pounded the porkchops (very shanghainese thing to do) and then marinaded my porkchops in:
lemongrass
lemon juice
garlic
onion
salt
pepper
brown sugar
regular sugar
honey
sake
and finally vietnamese fish sauce (eww! haha)

To serve with that, sauteed belanchan with garlic:


And caramelized shrimps. Btw, this is my favorite way to cook shrimps, imagine all that soy sauce, sugar, ginger, scallions and sake reduced down to an intense, finger-licking, kick ass sauce... and that's what you got

Crispy, Salt & Pepper Shanghainese Duck

When I was growing up, this was my favorite duck preparation - salty, peppery, steaming hot and soo sooo crispy out from the fryer!

To me this beats peking duck any day. And today this is still my favorite preparation for duck for the following reasons:
1. the duck was steamed first so majority of the oil is already gone
2. it's been marinaded in roasted szechwan peppers, five spices, black & white peppers, salt, cinnamon, clovers, garlic, ginger and scallion. If all those thing don't give it enough flavor, it was also steamed in quality sake.... mhmmmm
3. once steamed, it's left to dry for hours in order to promote extreme crispy skin
4. the residual oil is fantastic for sauteed spinach or roast potato

Now I know the traditional dish is meant to be deep fried. But I live in Manhattan with a small (actually bigger than most, but still small compared to suburban standards) kitchen and the idea of deep frying and then getting rid of the oil is a pain in the ass. Plus, why introduce more oil when my danko oven is perfectly capable of reducing even more of the oil left in the duck with a quick broil?

And to serve with it, caramelized brussel sprouts with lardons...

Surf & Turf

After a busy week, there's nothing better than an elaborate spread. For those weekly highlights, there's no where better to shop than Whole Foods. Don't get me wrong, I hate spending a Whole Paycheck there as much as anyone, but I have to admit they have the best quality meat and seafood in Manhattan.

So when I saw the Bone In Ribeyes on sale for $10.99, I knew I had to get one. And for the Surf, a huge bag of perfectly clean, plump and unbelievably fresh mussels.

Look at that! So pretty and pink!


My fool-proof method:
salt (like there's no tomorrow)
sear (2 minutes each side)
broil (4 minutes on 450+ degree oven)
butter (like it's god's gift to steak, cause it is!)
rest (for at least 5 minutes)
carve (this is very important, most ppl don't know how to cut a good piece of steak and will mutate it with their ridiculous dull butter knife. Better do it for them)



On to the mussels! Remember my little kitchen secret? a bottle of sake... that's all this recipe needs. That, and:

2 cloves of diced garlic
half a medium onion, also diced
a few ounces of slab bacon, again diced
half a ripe tomato, diced
a bunch of parsley

brown the bacon first, then take it out and add the garlic and onion to the flavored oil. After 5 minutes, add the tomato and cook until they are all one big happy family. Then add a cup of sake (very important to use a good sake and a lot of it). once the alcohol has burned off, add the mussels, cook for another 5 minutes with the lid on and then sprinkle with the parsley and bacon before serving. yum!!

No meal is complete with veggies... and why make regular veggies when you can broil portabella mushrooms in the steak juice?

Crab Season!

I love crabs!

I love carbs!

I love crabs and carbs together!

So from March to October is crab season in the east coast, when I was growing up this always the time where I would go to a pier off of Suffolk county and catch me some blue crabs! I would get up at 5am, drag my unwilling accomplice with me and spend a good 6-8 hours line-pulling in dozens of crabs. Fun! Fun! Fun!

My favorite way to enjoy them is crab two ways: 1. steam the shells with all that yummy roe for 2-3 minutes and enjoy with just a little vinegar and ginger (think the soup dumpling sauce) 2. sauteed the crabs in ginger, scallion, sake, soy sauce and sugar with rice cakes. The rice cakes absorb all the flavors of the crabs, it's freaking amazing!

Of course, I can't just stop at crabs, we need appetizers!


Marinated mushrooms in hoisin sauce


Sauteed broccoli with roasted garlic:


Braised ham hock

Weekend Meals

The more I get into cooking, the more I want to forgo the restaurant experience and stay home to create something all my own. It's getting to the point where I only go to restaurants for new inspirations. Great for his wallet, not so good for my workload :)

Weekend dinners are where I love to spend 3, 4, sometimes 8 hours creating something really elaborate. The standard Chinese meals always consist of multiple courses; veggie, meat, seafood and usually a soup. That's what I tried to do, so here's a typical saturday night meal:

Curry chicken with potatoes is a very typical Shanghainese meal, every mom I know makes it



Roast pig from Ctown, sometimes I cheat a little and buy some prepared food to supplement the meal, I really wish there were more places there I can easily pick up more prepared/appetizer food


Sauteed string beans with roast garlic... yum!



Lastly, Asians really believe in the healing power of soup. My mom has been telling me all about the ying and yang of food types since I can remember. Truth be told, that's not why I make soup, I make soup because it doesn't feel like a complete Chinese meal until I have had something savory burning down my throat

Weekend Breakfast

I used to love making breakfasts in the morning, but that was when schedules actually allowed that luxury. Now the elaborate breakfasts are reserved for weekends only. I try to do it at least once every weekend... there always seem to be other obligations over those short two days.

Anyway, one of his favorite comfort food is congee. In every Asian country, there is always a variety of congee and people love it for it's hearty, warm, comforting feel. That's probably why it's sometimes considered the chicken soup of Asia.

Here's a bone marrow congee I made over a 3 days process. Day 1: parboil and clean 3 pork joints, make sure to get the ones with as much bone marrow as possible. Once clean, simmer the bones in a stock pot for 3-4 hours with ginger, scallion, sake and salt. My mom always use wine when cooking meat so I buy one of those huge bottles of sake and add it to everything. That's my little kitchen secret. Day 2: skim off the fat on top of the stock Day 3: shimmer with rice ( i prefer short grain rice) for 2-3 hours.

The end results:

Of course you can't have something that healthy and soft without anything that's crunchy and greasy! Here's my pan fried Chinese dumplings. If you take the B/D trains to Grand Street, there is a supermarket across from the train station that sells literally dozens of variety of Chinese dumplings. One of my favorite mixture is celery and pork (seriously, it's better than the garlic chives and pork that every dumpling stall serves). This is also the simplest preparation: a non-stick pan with a drizzle of oil, fry the dumplings for 30 seconds until you see the dark brown bottoms and then add a cup of water and place the lid on the pan immediately. By the time, the water boils out, the dumplings will be frying in the residual oil in the bottom of the pan and you will get amazing results like these:

Homemade Xo Sauce

I recently went to dinner at a friend's apt. She served bbq ribs with asparagus and chorizo as a side. Just as we were sitting down, she jumped up and said "I have the PERFECT condiment to go with the ribs". I couldn't believe it when she brought out the homemade XO sauce. Other than the freebie at Dim Sum Go Go (which is quite good FYI), I have never had XO sauce. I kinda always thought it was a gloppy, brown, Cantonese sauce. Well, her's was brown, but definitely not gloppy. It was actually a deep mahogany saute of dried shrimps, herbs, lemongrass, chilies, fish sauce and a million other things!

The very next day I went to ctown in search of ingredients to make my own. I love culinary challenges and this is one I am especially proud of. However, knowing that I never follow a recipe, I might never be able to make this again. Haha!

Start with finely dicing dried scallops, shrimps, bird's eye chillis, garlic, lemongrass and shallots. It helps to have a sous chef :)


Start sauteing everything together. You are gonna be doing this for a while...


Until it looks like this:


Final product:


Better than the version at Dim Sum Go Go, and much, much more affordable.

Weekday meals

I have been getting in the habit of cooking up a storm for my weekday meals. Work is currently going through a slow period to why not take advantage of the situation? :)

Meal #1
Pernil, avocado and apple salad, spanish rice



Meal #2
Baked chicken wings, sauteed Chinese broccoli and fried prawns in garlic, ginger and scallions

It's been years...literally!

So obviously I have a ton of catching up to do... let's start with Super Bowl 2011...

Since the Cowboys weren't in the Super Bowl, the only thing I was interested in this year was the food. And the food was amazing! For those who have been to Anthos before it closed, an amazing Greek restaurant in Midtown, it is known for the lamb burgers and it is well deserved. The burger was juicy, meaty, smokey, all the adjectives a burger should have and then some. I was devastated when they closed, but thank god there's a recipe for the lamb burger on Saveur.

Here's the prep, this is one of the few times I have ever followed a recipe word for word. Well, almost :)
And here's the final product, I decided to serve these babies on a toasted mini potato roll with baby spinach and caramelized onions...


What's next? Ahhh, V-Day!

I generally hate going out on V-day: overpriced, mediocre food. I feel the same way about restaurant week. So this year, I decided to stay in and do a seafood boil. Who says you can't have a seafood boil in a manhattan apartment? Especially when lobsters are $7.99 a pound in ctown.

For appetizer, I served a salmon sashimi and avocado cerviche... with homemade cumin pita chips... I pretty much got full just from that!


For entree, I boiled a massive pot of lobster, shrimps, crabs, baby red potatoes, keilbasa and topped everything off with browned butter and cilantros...mmmmhhhhhh!!!

And here's the aftermath. I supplied the food. He supplied the roses. :)