Hello Lily with Spicy Tuna on Crispy Rice & Sea Salted Chocolate Dipped Shortbread

The second weekend in this unseasonably temperate August was sweetly punctuated by a visit to almost one year old Lily and her parents. We chatted and cooked and coo'd and ate, sipped at wine and napped on the couch.  My contributions to the evening: spicy tuna on crispy rice (a staple at trendy sushi-esque spots all over LA), and almond shortbread dipped in chocolate sprinkled with sea salt (recently inspired by Valerie Confections).

The tuna dish recipe is compiled from two different websites: The Ravenous Couple and Salty Seattle. Below, Ravenous Couple on the kitchen counter in my iPad. They cannot be beat for stunning visuals and solid instruction.

I buy sushi grade tuna at the Little Tokyo Marketplace, probably my favorite grocery store. I, like The Ravenous Couple, prefer my tuna in small cubes rather than processed within an inch of its life into a sort of baby-foodesque tartare. Not quite as large as I like it cut for a poke, but still quite distinct chunks.

Add Kewpie mayonnaise (mayo with rice wine vinegar and msg), sesame oil, sriracha, finely diced green onions, sesame seeds if you want. One of the diners told me it needed soy sauce, but I personally feel soy saucing this would be overkill. You want the subtle flavors of the tuna, sesame oil, etc. This is decidedly not meant to be a poke.

On the side I serve more green onions, slices of jalapeno and a doctored up kabayaki sauce. I buy the sauce bottled and add generous amount of wasabi paste.

Sushi rice escapes me. Even using the exact directions on the rice steamer, then precisely following step-by-step instructions garnered from several web sites that all rec the same method my rice was way too sticky. For this dish, stickiness was not an issue because you are frying the rice. My nasty old rice would not do for making sushi. This needs to be addressed at some point. Not today.

Nevertheless, I used a mold to get the perfect shape. You can really pack the rice in there tightly to ensure that it stays in one piece when frying.

Fry the rice patties in hot oil at 350F, if using and electric fryer. If cooking stove top, cook at medium-high heat and watch like a hawk turning frequently to avoid overcooking.

You can see below the finished product. I am working at not overcooking my rice in the fryer. You want it crispy on the outside and soft in the middle, not hard like zwieback. Also, I roll some of the rice patties in furikake before cooking, you can see the black and white sesame seeds on the outside.

The set of spicy tuna on crispy rice I assembled at Lily's had very overcooked rice. Luckily Lily's dad loves anything crispy and a little blackened. Between the six of us, we did gobble down every piece with nary a broken tooth, surprisingly.

Better than a kitchen witch.

As a dessert appetizer (K and Lily made carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting as the main course), I threw together almond shortbread dipped in chocolate liberally sprinkled with sea salt. I have been a little bored to death this week with a case of the summer head cold, this entertained me immensely. For the recipe, I consulted with Cookistry blog. Her recipe was easy and flawless.

In my food processor I first blended the dry ingredients (almond meal, salt, sugar, flour), then added eggs and vanilla. I made a double recipe because one of my oldest and dearest friends is coming to town next weekend and she has a soft spot for shortbread. We like to eat it with a glass of heavy handed chardonnay.

Add the butter and pulse until all the ingredients stick together in a homogeneously mixed lump.

Form into a log on plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour or more. I am keeping the second log until next Saturday.

Cut in quarter inch slices.

Arrange on cookie sheet. The recipe specified leaving some distance between the cookies but I found literally no spreading occurred whatsoever. Take that for what you will.

While the cookies cool, melt chocolate pieces in a double boiler or bain-marie. I simply use a glass bowl over a pan of boiling water. Very effective. 

Worth noting, this was inspired by a little cello bag of the exact same cookie made locally by Valerie Confections and sold at Silver Lake Wine. I am pretty much 100% sure Valerie used better quality chocolate than I did. I used Nestle Semi-Sweet chips. They did the trick and idgaf.

Dip the cookies in the chocolate.

I used parchment to line the sheet for both baking and cooling. Parchment is my only baking trick. I suck at baking and was shocked these came out so well.

Liberally sprinkle with sea salt. I used my chunkiest sea salt short of kosher salt. Fleur de Sel de Guerande. 

The food was good, the conversation loving and the baby is happy.

La Boqueria Barcelona Summer 2011

La Boqueria

Rambla

9100801 Barcelona, Spain

Yes, we just returned from a wonderful vacation in Barcelona. We did almost nothing in the way of sight seeing except to walk around the city with some sort of destination to which we almost never arrived (unless by cab). So easy to get distracted in such an architecturally and culturally diverse city.

On our first walk on our first day we strolled up La Rambla and quickly found ourselves among the hanging Iberico hams at the opening gates of the famous food market La Boqueria.

Luckily for us we arrived late in the day and the market was comparatively empty. We could ogle and nosh and snap at will.

Hearts, and heads, and blood of beef and tripe. The blood of beef in cubed form is used in some Catalonian stew style dishes. 

Salted cod fillets.

Rabbit.

I think the above is some kind of cured tuna.

I tried these snails the following evening in Barceloneta, simply steamed in water with a little butter and salt, they were mild tasting, meaty, delicious.

Percebes are also commonly called goose barnacles and I didn't see them in any menus while in Barcelona. Not sure I would order them if I had, although they are considered a delicacy. Harvested north of Barcelona in Galicia, they are often harvested for export to Canada or Morocco. 

When spoken of by the locals, La Boqueria was referred to (to me) as the fruit market. And while there is definitely a strong produce component I wouldn't call La Boqueria a fruit market if I were describing it to a friend. However, D buys us a fruit cup.

WHO took a bite out of that dragon fruit?

Dozens and dozens of varieties of pure and mixed fruit juices,

Needs no explanation.

Some markets in Barcelona label these as the French figue and some as breves. Nevertheless, they are much, much larger than figs grown in California. These are almost the size of my hand.

The exotic rambutan.

A baby pineapple. One of these was about the size of two of my fists put together. So cute.

There are many stalls for dining in La Boqueria. The two most well renowned (El Quim and Pinotxo) were two people deep even late into the afternoon. We stopped instead at the open barstools of this unassuming little tapas spot, had a nosh and great service. Booze is omnipresent in Barcelona, all day long. The little blonde woman at this spot had a full bar. Salud!

Lightly fried sardines.

And our first tapas of many, a grilled squid with pepper and a fried shrimp pinned through a sauteed mushroom.  These were very good compared to tapas we drunkenly came across later in the trip. Be picky. You literally cannot get away from tapas, so choose wisely. These were good.

Boquerones en vinaigre...the meat in the middle is chicken if I recall correctly. Again, nicer than boquerones I came across later in the trip. The breaded part was very light and fluffy, the red sauce tart and not spicy.

So many different offerings. Eggs, from all kinds of birds in all sorts of sizes.

Herbs and spices.

Chiles!

D did backflips for this stand. His favorite candy is anything gelly: Sourpatch Kids, Good n' Fruity, Gummi Bears, etc. This stall is a gummy candy celebration with amazingly authentic flavors. Every fruit under the sun. 

And other more inspired fruity flavors: caipirinha, sangria, citrico, mojito.

The tail end of the market at the end of a long afternoon. It still looks light outside but the sky doesn't actually darken in Barcelona in June until well after 9 pm.

Get in MAH Beer Belly!

Beer Belly
532 S. Western Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90020
213-387-2337
Beer Belly LA tumblr

No one can deny that Koreatown is a hub of good eats and drinks, a plethora of karaoke joints sleek and grimy, and pretty damn decent apartments in a central location at reasonable rents. I spent a few fantastic years as a singleton living at 5th and Catalina. I was happily located between Hollywood and Silverlake enjoying the occasional Korean BBQ and soondubu while bouncing back and forth between hipster bars  to the west and musical venues to the east. Those were some golden years right there.

It was not without some trepidation that I would pop into ChoSun Galbi with a date, the only white faces in the joint. And I don't ever remember enjoying soondubu on a cold rainy day without my Korean speaking girlfriend as my guide. Nowadays, I feel less bashful dropping in wherever in Ktown for whatever whenever, the more authentically ethnic feeling the better.  And now, I love the way brand new Beer Belly offers something of the old school Koreatown of fifteen years ago mixed with something previously unseen in Ktown. Delicious bulgogi, an ever so slightly esoteric location, a fresh menu and a beer lover's beverage program will make Beer Belly a destination gastropub from any zip code.

Quartet of artisanal brews from very local brewers.  Owner Jim told me on Memorial Day Eve that he searches out beers brewed as locally as Los Angeles and Orange County. The presentation of beer in both the glasses and behind the bar at the taps is sleek and modern, perfectly in keeping with the lustrous wooden walls and shiny metal bar made by a local craftsman in Silverlake. Newly local blogger Mark of iFlipForFood was out to play with a mate knocking back suds and chatting with D.

Lucky number 9!   

First out, grilled asparagus with parmesan cheese shavings.

Simply genius, fried artichoke hearts with a lemon herb aioli.  A really nice alternative to potato fries when swilling beer or sipping fizz.  I almost forgot to mention, Jim thoughtfully realized that a percentage of his guests aren't beer drinkers. In keeping with the sudsy beer theme, he serves for non-beer drinkers several kinds of sparkling wine by the glass. I sipped at a few glasses of German Gilabert Cava, happily prepping my taste buds for all the cava I will be drinking when I am in Barcelona later this month.

D and I both did backflips for the catfish and chips with kimchee tartare sauce, sea salt and malt vinegar. I love catfish to begin with and the follow through on this dish is a very light batter made tasty with a wheat beer, of course.

When in Rome one wears a toga and when in Koreatown one eats bulgogi while drinking, if at all possible.  We tried both short ribs on and off the bone; both were delicious.  Keep track of the daily specials at Beer Belly, the BBQ is only on the menu until sold out!

The above tweet was twittered the next morning....since Beer Belly doesn't serve soju, I admit to some late night #urbanhiking, but plead the fifth for details beyond.