For my 26th birthday I cleared out my schedule and filled up my pantry. I spent three days cooking a wide variety of foods and exploring new ingredients. Overall, I gained valuable experience from working with some difficult items.
Side note: DO NOT boil tripe in your house unless you hate yourself.
Sous vide Cornish game hen
Probably the easiest dish I attempted–Cornish hen with butter and herbs, vacuum sealed and cooked for 4 hours at 150F. I seared it off in the trusty cast iron skillet before serving. Super easy, and honestly some of the most tender poultry I’ve ever made. Would recommend.
Pork tamales
This was my first time making tamales. Definitely a few things to improve, but overall the flavor was there. I think my ratio of lard to masa was off–or I didn’t steam them long enough–so they kind of crumbled when removing them from the corn husks. Very tasty, and the process isn’t nearly as labor intensive as it is often made out to be.
Chili oil
Simple chili oil made with sesame oil, gochujang, dried chilies, and szechuan peppercorns. Just cook it all in a wok for a few minutes and bottle it up!
Sauerkraut
If you haven’t made sauerkraut, you can do it in about an hour with very little effort. Thinly slice your cabbage and mix in 2% kosher salt by weight. Massage the cabbage and salt and let sit. Continue to massage every 15 minutes until enough brine has seeped out to cover the cabbage when placed in a jar. Weigh down the cabbage in the brine and seal the jar. Keep at room temperature for about 2 weeks before transferring to the fridge. Be careful that too much gas doesn’t build up while fermenting–open the jar every now and then during the initial ferment to relieve pressure.
Menudo roja
Such a mistake. I could have followed the recipe wrong somehow, but this one should have been easy. Maybe I just wasn’t made to eat tripe. After boiling away all morning, the smell of tripe had filled my house completely and it was impossible to escape the deathly odor of salty stomach lining. I actually attempted to eat a spoonful of this potent soup, but couldn’t keep it down. If you know of a less offensive tripe recipe, please let me know.
Fresh tofu
Making tofu was a very lengthy process. I don’t know if I would do it again simply because of how cheap tofu is, and how spectacularly I failed at this one. I’m almost certain it is because I did not allow the soy milk to cool long enough and because I used epsom salt instead of pure nigari when attempting to coagulate the mixture. Don’t cheap out on your coagulant, boys.
Baguettes
Simple baguettes that I make regularly. Fairly sure I’ve included them in a previous post about bread. Just flour, salt, water, yeast.
Chicken feet and gizzards
I’ll be up front–I never finished making these. I prepared them, but never got around to frying them. Both ingredients actually smelled amazing when prepared with their appropriate spices and seasonings, but I got sidetracked over the weekend and missed my window to fry them up. I’ll definitely try them again because I’m really curious about the texture of both.
The new kitchen is decently broken in now, and I was very content with the results of this experiment. Maybe something to do every year? I got to try some things that have always intrigued me, and came out of it with some good food.
Next time: puff pastry and croissants!
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