Thursday, December 4, 2008

Monster Mega-Post: Beware!

I want to apologize in advance of this long post. But enjoy, nevertheless.

Monday and Tuesday of this week were not all that busy at TR. However, due to the down time and the slow post-Thanksgiving weekend, I was pretty productive. This weekend I rolled around 150 springrolls and nearly 200 potstickers. I also got to try my hand at making the Marionberry Crostadas. D. made the filling, but I made the crust and formed the crostadas, which Chef. J. said were "beautiful". Then the owner A. said the "look good and small even better!" This was after I had pulled them from the oven, the Marionberry filling bubbling slightly and the edges of the crust a nice golden hue. So that made me feel pretty good, to be sure.

In other food news, I tried my hand at cooking with the wok Tuesday night. I made myself Mongolian Scallion Beef. Delicious! I mean, it's not ready to be served to paying guests, but it's far from awful. I didn't quite get all the sauce distributed properly, but that's okay for the first time. I learned that it is a lot harder to flip food in a wok than in a saute pan. Here's a quick step-by-step on how we make this dish:
1) Heat 3 spoonfulls of oil in wok (btw, the spoons probably measure a cup each). While heating, get 10 oz. of pre-dredged beef and a large handful of scallions, cut 1" long.
2) Oil velvet (i.e. fry in the wok) beef. Use the wok spoon (maybe more of a shovel) to keep beef separated while cooking.
3) Drain wok, keeping beef on the side. Saute garlic, dried chilis, and chili flakes.
4) Add in about half a spoon of Dark Sauce (our house sauce which I make), and 3 T sugar. Stir until caramelized.
5) Toss in beef and scallions. Toss to coat beef in sauce.
6) Serve over or beside rice.

This dish doesn't have a lot of complexity to it; rather, it's the speed at which all this occurs that makes this a tough dish to cook. I think I did okay for my first time though. And I'm getting better at cleaning the wok too. Baby steps.

Something else I learned this week, not TR menu related, is about snakes in China. Chef M. (who pronounces snake "snaket") was telling me that the majority of snakes in China prefer the southern (more tropical) regions of China, especially cobras. Yikes! Did you know that snakes HATE the smell of mint?! They will not slither through mint plants, they would rather go around. Also, for non-venomous snake bites Chinese medicine dictates making a dressing out of mint leaves to apply to the bite. Supposed to be very helpful and curative. Also, cobra soup is supposed to be extremely healthy in Chinese medicine, even to the point of healing osteoporosis (sp?) and arthritis. Chef M. said that's why cobra soup is so expensive...

When there is a lot of down time in the kitchen and there isn't a whole lot of prep to do, I clean. Tuesday I cleaned the freezer, walk-in refrigerator, butcher table, front line, pantry area, and then some. But I would like to remind you that I don't do windows. Or dogs. Sorry.

And a final not, we got a new beer on tap this week, for those that are interested. It is Mac & Jack's African Amber. This is one of my personal favorite beers. So I'm excited about that...

Hope you enjoyed and/or learned something from this rather large post. Happy December!

-K.