Crêpes from a French guy & Koja

Ok, so he's not French, but he lived in France for a bit and speaks fluent French -- I present to you:  my boyfriend SP (in the process of rolling a crêpe)!

Our shopping adventure was fun too! As we walked towards Trader Joe's, SP saw a falafel food cart driving into the city. "No! You're driving the wrong way! I want food to come towards me, not away from me!", he said. We bought eggs, milk, and flour, but not Nutella, because Trader Joe's doesn't sell any (they sell cocoa almond spread, though). On the way back, though, we walked past a Rite-Aid, and they had exactly ONE JAR left! Coincidence! I'm not a huge fan of Nutella (in early 2007, I had an obsession with it and ate it every day. That may be why I haven't loved Nutella since). Nutella has many uses, one of which is lathering it onto a homemade crêpe.

On the way back, we stopped by Koja (THEY WERE OPEN!) to get dinner, even though I had been under the impression that crêpes were going to be dinner. Koja sells Korean food, and I realised that I'm never going to be able to have bulgogi :( It turns out that every Friday after 3pm, meals are $4.50 instead of the usual $5 or $6. This makes sense because Koja isn't open over the weekend, and they have to sell off all that steamed rice and marinated cow and pig chunks.

SP got beef bulgogi and kimchi, and I got tofu rice noodles. Although I have have pickled cabbage before, I'm not sure I've ever had official "kimchi". I don't think I like it tremendously -- I prefer cucumber pickles, pickled bak choi, or zha[4] cai[4] (榨菜), a pickled Chinese mustard stem (this is my favourite).

I tried some of the vegetables in the bulgogi, and they had a really strong beef flavour. The tofu and rice noodles were really spicy but still delicious and had a great texture, and there was also some white sesame!

SP told me that he'd never actually made crêpes by himself before. Apparently he'd just lounge around and "prepare the Nutella", which instantly reminded me of whenever my mum makes fa[2] gao[1] (steamed cake), my sister just lounges around and "prepares the chocolate syrup" by taking it out of the fridge.

SP used the recipe that he and his mum use for crêpes, which calls for 1 cup of milk (we used a bit more than that), 1 egg, 1 teaspoon of oil (we used peanut, which .wasn't the best idea), 1 tablespoon of sugar (we used 2), and 1 cup of plain flour (we used a bit less). Basically you just mix the wet stuff, add sugar, and then sift in the flour. We ran into a bunch of problems though, because I'm a college student with no kitchen.

1. No big bowl --> borrowed one from TJ.

2. No sifting capability --> some lumps (but SP got rid of them!)

3. Square pan --> squarish crêpes.

4. When the first crêpe was done, SP exclaimed "No one prepared the Nutella!!" I guess it is important to have an official Nutella-jar-opener, hm?

 

Above: SP cooking. The first crêpe was a little thick, about the same thickness as these ones I made before.

Below: thin crepe!

We made 5 in total, although if we had made thinner (read: better) ones, we would've ended up with 6.

"Cows Make Delicious!"

Australian meat pies are, to me, originate from either an inexpensive restaurant, or the freezer. I did make them from scratch two weeks ago, but, ironically, the "real" version to me is the frozen kind I used to stick in the microwave, or the hot, fresh kind I got a Penrith Plaza (or my primary school tuck shop). The Australian meat pies that I knew weren't made with whole-wheat flour or American cows.

So I've decided just to make meat tarts because:

1. I had a pound of minced cow pieces and I didn't feel like making meatballs

2. Tarts use less pastry than pies.

Fortunately, one pound of minced cow filling fit perfectly into 19 pastry shells!

For 19 egg-tart-sized pastry shells:

180 g of butter/1.5 sticks cut into about 320 g whole-wheat flour/2.5 cups and 1 tsp salt, with some water added to make the crumbs stick to each other to form a dough.

The top of the filling hardens/crisps a bit when cooking, while the inside of the tart remains moist and delicious (I'm assuming).

Along with apparently being a good spaghetti sauce...

...INGREDIENTS FOR THE FILLING:

1 large diced onion

40 ml ketchup

1 tsp Vegemite (optional, since this is not an Australian meat pie, after all)

6 heaping tbsp steak sauce

2 tbsp barbecue sauce

450 g minced beef

1 tsp salt (optional)

1 tbsp cornstarch/cornflour

250 ml water (or tomato juice, if you have any)

METHOD

1. On high heat, cook onions, ketchup, Vegemite, steak sauce, barbecue sauce, and salt for a few minutes.

2. Throw in minced beef and listen to it sizzle for a few minutes.

3. Mix the cornstarch with a little bit of water, then dilute with remaining water. Pour water+cornstarch into saucepan.

4. Simmer on medium heat for around 20 minutes. A little less is fine. Just make sure the mince is cooked. If you are a vegetarian, use your eyes.

5. Scoop about 1.5 heaping tbsp of filling into each pastry shell. The filling will look very liquidy, but the liquid will congeal to a terrifically juicy meat filling thing in the oven.

6. Bake in an un-preheated oven on the lower rack for 15 minutes at 221 degrees C/430 degrees F. Let sit in oven for an hour or so. OR, just let them bake for 20 minutes. Either way, you just want to the crust to be cooked.

Something that's been on my mind recently is Chowder saying "Cuz cows make delicious!" from the episode "The Garage Sale". It goes something like...

Mung: We're going to-

Chowder: gettin' a cow?

Mung: Why do you want a cow?

Chowder: Cuz cows make delicious!

Mung: Delicious what?

Chowder: A garage sale, huh? Why would anyone want to sell their garage?

(this is paraphrased)

Australian Meat Pie...

...sort of.

I highly doubt I could make an authentic Australian meat pie. Even if I did, I wouldn't be able to eat it. Though, I guess if/when I go to Australia (That shop at Penrith Plaza, particularly), I'd probably actually eat (*gasp*) the beefy concoction enclosed in a crusty pastry shell.

The first step towards making a nice Australian meat pie would be to obtain a neat, authentic recipe. I'm not really sure whether this is an authentic recipe, but I chose it because Vegemite was one of the ingredients and everything was in metric units. So, at least I know it's from someone from the other-ish side of the world.

I didn't use prefrozen crust though (I made a whole-wheat short crust instead), and I did use different ingredients...but I don't feel like delving into this subject since HFCS and other random ingredients are involved. The filling smelled just like Australian meat pies (AHHHHH :D) which brought back a shock of nostalgia. When I smell the filling, I think about breezy Saturdays at Penrith Plaza, or at the public library, or walking down the lawn, or running up and down the hills at Nepean River. Carefree days. Unfortunately, I made too little pastry. Unlike the standard sized pies, I made small ones that fit into egg tart shells. Why? Er, I don't have any other containers for these pies...

Although it appeared that my filling was too runny, after baking the pies in the oven (430 degrees F for 10 minutes, 375 degrees F for 7 minutes, and... sit in the oven for half an hour), the texture and moist-ness was perfect!

Chelo's

Thursday the 22nd of July: Chelo's for dinner. Though we were driving from Weymouth MA to Seekonk MA, the GPS told us to drive through RI... so we did, and on the outskirts, we happened across this restaurant, at which we had a great dinner. I don't understand why NJ and NY have all these toll roads, whereas we someone managed to avoid tolls everywhere else...

"Stuffies" appears to be a RI concept. We didn't get it; not my loss though since it's apparently this giant stuffed clam. My brother should've ordered it though; he was sort of regretting it. Eh, next time.

Warm bread rolls.

My dad got some French cow pie thing, which I believe is another RI dish. According to my brother, it was dry and too "meaty", because he was comparing it with the famous Australian Meat Pie. The mashed potato was really nice, though, and the CORN WAS AMAZING.

My grandpa got steak. He attained his goal of being able to live the "American Dream", which, for him, means consuming some steak with vegetables and mashed potato. This stuff, if done authentically in China [which I kind of doubt], is really expensive. Here, though, it's an average meal.

My mum got some seafood pasta, ate a few bites, and left the rest for the next day because she "wasn't hungry". This is why I DON'T order when we go out to eat. My mum barely ever gets through half of her meal... my sister never finishes her kids meal... my brother finishes about 50% of the time...

My brother got a "bananaberry salad", wherein the banana pieces are actually fried banana chips. They were with a balsamic dressing and a balsamic strawberry dressing. I don't like balsamic dressing. I like to use balsamic vinegar as an ingredient for jam and baked items, because it's just used to accent the flavour of everything else, but I honestly dislike the taste of balsamic vinegar itself. But not too deeply... I can tolerate most foods. Except liquorice. Anyway, I digress.

My curly fry swan!