Denny’s Fried Cheese Melt

“.. Restaurant chain Denny’s updated its value menu with the Fried Cheese Melt, a sandwich made with ‘four fried mozzarella sticks and melted American cheese grilled between two slices of sourdough bread. Priced at a reasonable $4, it’s served with french fries and a side of marinara sauce.”

Denny’s should up the ante and offer a burger with Fried Cheese Melts as buns…

Ingredients:

Small chicken (Cornish hen), 1/4 cup of sweet rice, a dozen cloves of garlic, green onions, a few jujubes, and 1 or 2 small ginseng roots.

1. Wash and rinse your chicken in cold running water.
2. Soak 1/4 cup of sweet rice for 1 hour.
3. Stuff the chicken with the sweet rice, a ginseng root, a few jujubes, and 3-4 cloves of garlic. Place it in a pot.
4. Pour water into the pot and boil it over high heat for 20 minutes. When it starts boiling, skim off any foam and fat that rises to the surface Then pour in more water and boil it over medium heat for 40 minutes.
5. When it cooks properly, the chicken will be easily pulled apart by chopsticks.
6. Serve it with salt and pepper and kimchi or kaktugi.

Anthony Bourdain: Fish Head Curry in Kerala, India:

Coconut Curry Mussels

INGREDIENTS

• 2 lbs of mussels, cleaned and debearded
• 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1 thai chili, finely chopped (can substitute good pinch of chili flakes)
• 3 teaspoons of ginger, minced
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of curry powder
• 1/2 cup of chicken broth
• 1 can of coconut milk
• Pinch of salt
• 1 stalk of lemongrass, chopped into four pieces and smashed
• 3 kaffir lime leaves * (optional)
• Chopped cilantro
• Lime wedges

* Kaffir lime leaf: a key ingredient in Vietnamese, Thai, and Hmong cuisine; can be found in Asian Markets, though many markets now carry them in the produce aisles with other fresh herbs. The taste is very distinct and can’t be substituted. However, you can make this dish without the leaves and the mussels will still taste great.

METHOD

1. Place mussels in a bowl of cold water so the mussels will spit out any sand or mud. Let them sit for 10 minutes. Drain and repeat. Toss any mussels that are open as these are dead. Debeard the mussels, pulling out their byssal threads (aka: their “beards”) and place them in a bowl of cold water until ready to use.
2. Heat the oil in a pan and add the onion and stir for a few minutes until they become soft and slightly translucent. Add the chilies, ginger, and curry powder and stir for a minute until fragrant.
3. Add the chicken broth and reduce half. Add the coconut milk, salt, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves if using and bring to a boil. Drain and add the mussels, reduce heat to medium and cover with a tight fitting lid. Cook for 6-7 minutes until the mussels open. Discard any that are closed as these were dead before cooking. (Some may only be slightly open, if you have to debate on whether it’s good to eat or not, toss it.) Spoon mussels into bowls and pour over with broth. Garnish with chopped cilantro and juice from lime wedges.

Serves 4.

Carl’s Jr. testing foot-long cheeseburger

Galbijjim from Maangchi on Vimeo.

White Gazpacho

White Gazpacho Recipe

The recipe calls for stale bread because this soup is an excellent use of old bread that is too hard to eat. Sometimes when we buy freshly baked bread we don’t eat it all, and the leftovers get dry and hard within days. We keep the bread to make bread crumbs. So, this is what you would typically use. If you don’t have any old bread lying around, you can use white bread, with the crusts removed. Use a good quality white bread, such as a French or Italian loaf.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups of crustless stale bread, broken into pieces
• 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock (use vegetable stock for vegetarian version)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup slivered blanched almonds (must be blanched, the skins are bitter)
• 2 cups green seedless grapes, sliced in half
• 2 cucumbers, peeled, seeded and chopped
• 1-3 chopped garlic cloves (depending on how garlicky you want the result to be)
• 2-3 Tbsp sherry vinegar or cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Chives for garnish

METHOD

1. Heat the stock until it’s steamy. Turn off the heat and add to the stock the broken up pieces of stale bread. Let cool.
2. Put the almonds, salt and garlic in a food processor and pulse until the almonds are pulverized. Add the soaked bread and any stock that was not absorbed by the bread into the food processor, then add the grapes and cucumbers. Pulse until the mixture is a rough purée.
3. Add 2 tablespoons of the vinegar and pulse a few seconds to combine. Taste and add the other tablespoon if it needs it – grapes can sometimes be acidic enough to leave out the final tablespoon of vinegar.
4. With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil. Turn off the motor and taste the gazpacho. Add more salt if needed.

Chill before serving, garnish with chopped chives.

Serves 6-8.

It was the greatest night of my life. I’d been invited to the Captain’s Table. I’d only been with the company fourteen years. Six officers and me! They called me “Arnold.” We had gazpacho soup for starters. I didn’t know gazpacho soup was meant to be served cold. I called over the chef and I told him to take it away and bring it back hot. He did. The looks on their faces still haunt me today! I thought they were laughing at the chef, when all the time, they were laughing at me as I ate my piping hot gazpacho soup. I never ate at the Captain’s Table again. That was the end of my career.
– Arnold Judas Rimmer

A Morning Dog for Bleakfast…

Cucumber Mint Raita

If you are using English cucumbers, which are more mild and thin-skinned than the regular cucumbers we get in America, you do not need to peel them.

INGREDIENTS

• One large (or two medium) cucumbers, peeled, cut in half lengthwise and seeded, then grated
• 2 cups plain whole milk yogurt
• 10 large mint leaves, thinly sliced* (can sub cilantro)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin**
• Pinch of cayenne
• Pinch of paprika
• Salt and pepper

* To slice the mint leaves, “chiffonade” them by stacking them on top of each other, rolling them up like a cigar, and taking thin slices off the end.

** If whole cumin seeds are available, take one teaspoon and toast the seeds first in a small skillet until just fragrant. Then grind with a mortar and pestle.

METHOD

1. Place grated cucumber in a sieve and press with the back of a spoon to squeeze out as much moisture as you can. Alternatively, you can place the grated cucumber in the middle of a clean tea towel, wrap the towel around the cucumber and wring out the excess moisture.
2. Stir spices and mint into yogurt in a medium bowl. Stir in the grated cucumber. Chill until ready to serve.

Makes 2 1/2 cups.