ONE MAN'S TRASH ANOTHER MAN'S TREASURE
ONE MAN'S TRASH ANOTHER MAN'S TREASURE
Round 3: rice is nice
NO SHADE IN FALLING OUT OF A COCONUT TREE:
COCONUT STICKY RICE TUNA YAKI ONIGIRI
BROWN BUTTER MOLE TUNA FLOSS,
SMOKED RHUBARB SAUSAGE FAT JAM
A can each of Alex and Sophia’s Kirkland albacore solid white tuna in water (same but different packaging!) dried in a nonstick pan and stabbed with a wooden spatula for 15 minutes until flaky and flossy. Browned butter with Ava’s mole sauce for chicken, then toss in tuna and continue to brown, dry, lightly fry, try to not burn.
Soak sticky rice overnight, mix with Sangita’s shredded coconut and tried to steam in a bamboo basket with parchment but failed. So transfer to nonstick pan and add hella water and cook till plump and sticky. Wrap and rest in parchment overnight.
Tuna salad: more canned tuna, kewpie, Pokeworks crunchy garlic, ponzu.
Pinch off surprisingly small blobs of sticky rice and flatten between your palms, it really will stretch out into a wrapper! A heaped tbsp of tuna salad into the rice, pinch with fingers in an OK sign to close. The rice is so malleable if there’s any holes / tuna salad popping out, just pinch a small blob and push it flat and tack it on. Shape into triangles.
Melt butter and pan sear onigiri until GBD, lightly crisp the sides too. Place a tiny blob of 10 year + overnight fermented smoked rhubarb, roasted red pepper, and pink peppercorn jam from Vy that I fried again in rendered Chinese sausage fat (and tasted like fried chicken according to Kenny and Sangita), to act as glue for sprinkled on tuna floss
FEELING LIKE HBH: WATERMELON, TARRAGON LIME SALT, CITRUS MERINGUE SALSA GRANITA
Watermelon from Boston’s very own fruitsomm Jenny who for the third time still unable to dine. Cubed and topped with chopped up tarragon leftover from making crab cake sauce for work, salt, sugar. Crumbled on leftover hydration meringue from OMT AMT 2, and grated frozen pineapple mango salsa from Alex
HEDGEHOGS ON GRASS: CHICKEN / MARROW / SAUSAGE PEARL MEATBALLS, MUSHY PEAS, SHIITAKE
Really didn’t think of making pearl meatballs until I was scrolling through little fat boy frankie’s blog and remembered that pearl meatballs were a thing that I first tried as an older teen in Shanghai at the marriott and I was soaking sticky rice for the onigiri
Remove meat from Yuou and William’s chicken drumsticks (so many more tendons than I expected / you don’t see when eating a cooked drumstick) and chop finely / grind with a knife (sadly no cleaver). Mix at 80/20 ratio with Ava’s bone marrow, spring onion also from leftover crab cake sauce, shaoxing wine, cornstarch, ponzu, finely chopped boiled Chinese sausage made by William’s dad, rehydrated shiitake bits from Jetro event and some of the mushroom liquid. Hand mix till tacky, shape into balls and fridge.
Need veg so saute frozen peas from giant Wegman’s holi bag in bone marrow, puree with gelatinous chicken broth made with the drumstick bones. Spread on coupe like a lawn of grass, like the beef pasta from Giulia (cows on grass)
Roll meatballs in soaked sticky rice, steam for 20 minutes. Top with rehydrated shiitake mushrooms sliced like hedgehog heads (mostly bc the dried shiitakes failed to slice into cute Japanese bento flowers for the grass field). Sprinkle over more rendered Chinese sausage crumbles and Pokeworks crunchy shallots.
HUMBLED BY THE KRASI GODS: HUMMUS MAKAROUNES, BONE MARROW MAPLE CARAMELIZED ONIONS, MUSHROOM PECORINO
Krasi blessed my taste buds with a “Karpathian pasta, caramelized onions, mizithra, herbs” during the feast of the gods / mad rush back from Cincinnati that was so simple but so good, looked like cavatelli (another horrible shape) but wasn’t just gluten mush and in fact bouncy chewy like dense mochi?!
Alex’s rice flour with wheat starch, tapioca starch, some boiling water (itslizmiu-based recipe for gf dumpling wrappers I made a few years ago), and a big blob of Sabra Greek hummus from Alex. Knead until a nice pliable dough, had to add a bunch more of the flours. Pinch off tiny balls and squish smear with finger like orecchiette, then gently roll to get a tubular shape. Orecchiette is one of the worst pasta shapes imo so make it better with the penne vibe. let dry on a cutting board
Roast a piece of Ava’s bone marrow to render out the fat, then caramelize an onion in it with salt and Kenny’s chunky maple sugar. Fridge.
Steam the pastas in the steamer basket until bouncy, then transfer to pan with heated up onions. Add chicken drumstick broth and let steam / moisten a bit more, add more bone marrow to crisp up the surfaces.
Grate on pecorino from the vegan cheese salesman who door knocked the office and dried shiitake. looking like cannellini beans!
CULTURAL EREWHON SUNDAE: BROWN BUTTER BLACK SESAME CHOCOLATE LAVA SEAWEED RICE DUMPLINGS, CHOCOLATE PROTEIN MOUSSE, HOJICHA SWIRLED RICE ICE CREAM
Vy’s laver seaweed rehydrated in boiling water, blended into a hot puree. Mix with both of Alex’s rice flours, tapioca starch, sesame oil into a dough. Roll out wrappers and punch out circles with a cookie cutter.
Melt Alex’s cappuccino chocolate (save a few blocks) over a double boiler, add remaining brown butter from the tuna floss, Alex’s black sesame powder, Sangita’s Ancient Nutrition collagen, salt, bit of milk into a crumbly mixture and hope the fats didn’t separate / it will become lava later. Pleat dumplings with a small piece of saved cappuccino chocolate. Cover with a wet paper towel bc looking very brittle.
Steam in a nonstick pan with a bunch of water. Became so beautifully plump and all the ugly cracks went away! And got so much blacker in color!
Protein pudding / sort of pastry cream… Alex’s fairlife chocolate protein shake, rest of Vy’s cocoa powder from round 1, cornstarch, probably leftover egg yolks from macaron making.
Kenny’s leftover rice bc he left for Seattle, toasted dry in a pan, blended with milk, some thick dairy, guar gum. Creami really started to struggle in the second blend after gelato setting bc the rice sticky thickness really came through! Blended some leftover hojicha cottage cheese creami till crumbly. Both respun with heavy cream. Scoop a bit of hojicha, fill in the gaps with rice ice cream. latter was so thick that it broke my ice cream scoop
ONE LAST CHEETO CORNBREAD HURRAH:
TAKIS CORN-OAT-ARONS, CRUNCHY CHILI LIME SOUR CREAM
Confidence for an oat-based macaron from flourdeliz and extremely fluffy on Reddit (apparently I overmixed the batter though). On Wednesday, separated out 4 egg whites into a deli and covered with cling film with holes poked in it to dry out the egg whites supposedly. Also crumbled up the last third of Sangita’s takis cornbread and dehydrated at 200-250 to try to maintain the red color, blitzed quickly bc felt like it had enough fat (like almond flour!) to turn into a butter. Total about 80g takis cornbread flour after sifting out clumps (keep) and 40g blended rolled oats from sangita in round 3. Preppy kitchen method. Whisked flours with 120g powdered sugar. Use electric beaters to beat 100g egg whites brought to room temperature till foamy, then add 1/4 tsp cream of tartar. Continue whisking and gradually add 90g raw sugar, whisk until marshmallow stiff peak fluff. Sift in the dry, fold with a spatula till you can form a figure 8. Load a big ziplock bag then pipe dollops, slam the tray 2-3 times, wait for 45 minutes but a skin still did not form, bake at 300F for 15 minutes. First batch cracked af; age overnight. SECOND BATCH FORMED FEET BUT I DROPPED IT FACE DOWN! TREMENDOUS RIP I DONT EVEN HAVE A PHOTO TO PROVE IT
Strain sour cream from round 1 (yuou and William also gave a tub) in cheesecloth for a few days in the fridge, squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Whisk with Johoenathan’s good & gather chili powder and zested limes from Yuou.
To serve, dollop a bit of sour cream on the ugly halves of macaron. Sprinkle on reserved takis cornbread clumps, carefully sandwich a prettier cookie on top
Conclusions:
I see NNB’s appeal of serving meat and carb multiple times
Macarons hold memories when you become allergic to almonds!
I miss plating individual portions for people