OK so this is the second old post I am re-posting. Yeah I’m a lazy ass bum, But, but but but, I feel morally obligated to disseminate some at least semi- authentic kimchi info across the tubes upon hearing of Bette Midler’s recently becoming a kimchi ambassador of sorts. A friend told me she saw Ms. Midler on the Today Show demonstrating how to make something she claimed was kimchi. It apparently involved stacked cabbage leaves with some seasoning in between. Mysteriously, the google cannot seem to locate any evidence of this incident. Anyway here’s a video of Better Midler preaching the kimchi gospel to Kelly Ripa. Pretty surreal shit, man:

Whoa. So anyway, I guess I can’t really complain about the motherland’s greatest gift to the world getting some press, but I dunno, it all just seems very, very wrong. Original post follows.

So I finally broke down and wrote a Citypaper piece about kimchi. It’s tantamount to, I dunno, someone from Iowa writing about corn. Actually that’s a terrible analogy, point is it just seems a bit cliche, but I know that’s irrational. In any case, in my defense it was under duress and I believe it to be interesting to Korea-philes if nothing else. Anyway the full text can be found here. Below are some hopefully helpful pics.

Korean cucumbers are a bit more irregularly shaped than hydroponic, pcikling, or slicer cukes, and also have small bumps and a yellowish cast. They can be found at most any Asian market, and are generally around $2/lb:

Cut into 2″ lengths – make sure to trim the ends, apparently there is an enzyme in the flower bud end that causes the cucumber to become mushy, so trim both to be safe:

Carefully bisect the sections lengthwise, leaving about a quarter inch intact – use the standard bagel slicing method:

Rotate and repeat so that you end up with a mostly quartered section:

Place the partially quartered sections into a bowl and salt thoroughly, making sure to salt the cut flesh. Allow to sit for at least two hours (sorry no pic). In the meantime, combine the seasonings to form a fairly thick paste:

After a couple of hours of salting, the sections should be a bit more pliable. Brush off any excess salt (do not rinse!) and discard any collected liquids. With a teaspoon, fill the sections generously with the seasoning paste:

You should end up with sections that look like this:

Pack as tightly as you can in the closest fitting containter you can find:

Rinse the bowl you used to mix the paste with a bit of fresh water, perhaps a 1/4 cup. This will be used to submerge the kimchi, and should taste quite salty – add salt if necessary:

Cover cucumber sections with brine and cover with plastic wrap, making sure they are packed down well. Use a weight (e.g. soup can, brick) if necessary:

Leave out overnight at room temperature and taste – if the kimchi still tastes too fresh, give it another few hours, up to 24 total. Then refrigerate. Final product:

Alternative preparation – my mom tells me that the following is actually the more proper way to make this kimchi. It consists merely of a diffierent cutting technique. The above semi-quartering method is more convenient and quicker, while the method below yields more attractive results. Instead of quartering the sections, make a deep score, about a third of the way through. Repeat 4-5 times evenly spaced around each section:

After salting, fill the scores with spicy paste and proceed as directed above. Final product:

Recipe:
Sue Hong’s Easy Oh-Ee Soh-Beh-Gee (Cucumber Kimchi)

Ingredients:

6-8 medium Korean cucumbers* OR
8-10 Kirby or pickling cucumbers OR
3-4 seedless hydroponic cucumbers
1/2 cup Korean red pepper powder
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup finely chopped scallion or chives
1/4 cup coarse sea salt, or slightly less to taste (table or kosher salt will yield mushier kimchi)
2 tbsp fish sauce (Three Crabs brand is very good)
1 tsp sugar

Cut the tips off both ends of cucumbers (this will ensure crunchiness), then cut into 2-3 inch segments

Quarter the segment lengthwise, cutting almost but not all the way through, leaving four spears attached at one end

In a bowl, salt the pieces thoroughly with sea salt, and allow to rest for 2 hours

In another bowl, combine all other ingredients and enough salt to make the mixture quite salty, but overpoweringly so; add just enough water to make a thick paste

After the salted cucumber has rested, wipe off any remaining salt and discard any collected liquid

For each segment, using a teaspoon, generously smear the spicy paste in between the cucumber spears (should still be attached, but a bit more flexible now)

Pack tightly in a glass or stainless steel container, vertically if possible

Add fresh water to the bowl that contained the spice paste, swirl and rinse any remaining paste into the water, and pour over cucumbers, adding only enough to barely cover

Cover the container and allow to rest at room temperature overnight or about 8 hours, then taste for sharpness and acidity; if desired, leave out for a total of up to 12 hours before refrigerating for up to a week

*Note: Do not use the smooth, dark green “slicer” cucumbers, as their skin is too thick and seeds too hard. All ingredients listed above can be found at Hanareum or Lotte Asian supermarkets, both on Rte. 40

-Henry Hong

Our favorite (i.e. only) guest blogger Brian insisted on ranting publicly about the erstwhile genteel-sounding Mt. Vernon Flower Mart.  Frankly though, I’m not a fan simply because it occurs on weekdays, further choking traffic in mid-town where drivers tend to be even shittier than your run-of-the-mill Baltimore non-driving stupid motherf…but I digress. Enjoy.

It’s the time of year that every sensible city dweller dreads. Spring kicks off various festivals and glorified flea markets that bring hordes of slack-jawed county folks pouring into the city to wander aimlessly, endanger pedestrians, and look the other way as their filthy spawn gleefully trash some poor bastard’s sidewalk garden. The only good thing about these nuisance events? The food of course! There’s something special about being able to walk a block from your apartment and enjoy a gyro, a waffle cake, and a beer or two while standing on the sidelines and checking out the jailbait as they shamelessly flaunt themselves about.

Flower Mart, Mount Vernon’s first spring event, happened this weekend and I experienced something truly saddening. Each year the festival foods seem to get at least a dollar more expensive, that’s a given, but this year there was a noticeable decline in the quality of said treats.

Friday, the first day of the Flower Mart, I navigated my way through the crowd, lightly buzzed from a short happy hour. I remembered, possibly erroneously, that a friend recommended the pit beef sandwiches offered at this particular festival. The biggest food stand happened to be the first one I came across. Biddle Street Catering offered pit beef, pit turkey, hot dogs, and various other standards. The line was sizeable but moved quickly, and after few minutes I handed over $6.50 for a foil-wrapped pit beef sandwich that the lovely young lady working the stand retrieved from a buffet warming tray. I didn’t feel like hanging around and listening to a band of 40-somethings bang out dubious covers of Motown hits, so I took my prize home. Practically salivating, I unwrapped the sandwich and found this:

“I paid $6.50 for this?!?”

This sorry-ass squashed little thing seemed to look back at me and shrug, “Hey man, what did you expect?” Hesitantly, I lifted the bun and examined the supermarket lunchmeat-quality slices of roast beef that sat unevenly on the bun, unappetizingly grey in color. That was it. No onions, no horseradish sauce, nothing. With a sigh, I slapped some mayo on the sandwich and ate without joy.

Undaunted, or perhaps just plain stupidly, I headed out on Saturday for another stab at carnival food contentment. With chicken souvlaki on the brain, I made my way to the “Quesadilla Hut,” or at least I think that’s what it was called. When I got within eyeshot of the menu I balked: $8.00 for a chicken souvlaki? The hell with that. Still wary from the pit beef, and not wanting to get burned to the tune of eight bills for another failure, I changed my mind and ordered the old standby – a nice $5.00 Italian sausage with peppers and onions. The lady handed it over, in foil but partially unwrapped, and what I could see of the Italian sausage did not fill me with confidence. Things looked awfully skimpy in there. I was chased off once more by threatening rain clouds and a woman on stage with an acoustic guitar performing an extremely earnest version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” so I dodged the milling unwashed masses and went home. Safe in my kitchen, unwrapping the rest of the Italian sausage confirmed my fears.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!?”

The shriveled little sausage (there was one in there, I swear) didn’t even fill up the bun. I put some mustard on it and once again ate with a heavy heart.

Perhaps I managed to acquire the two sorriest excuses for food that the Flower Mart had to offer this weekend, but this seems to be the beginning of a disturbing trend. I assume that the vendors are pretty much the same from festival to festival. Intelligently commenting on the controversy of increasingly ridiculous food prices would require research that I don’t feel like doing right now, but I can say one thing: This lack of quality will not stand. If the vendors expect someone to blow upwards of twenty bucks for a meal as pathetic as the two I had the misfortune of “enjoying” at the Flower Mart, they have well and truly lost their minds. Time to step it up, folks. Artscape, I’m looking at you.

Sorry folks, stupid godaddy’s terrible ftp server is making my life miserable.  Anyway, last Thursday I was on the reddio with talk show extraordinaire Dan Rodricks, this time chatting about my round-up of tamales in the B-more area. It was in the annual food issue of Citypaper, and I gotta admit they might as well have called it  the Henry Hong special edition, because, pardon my French, but I was all up in that piece! I had the cover story about tamales, a normal ‘Eat Me’ about raw food (for which I got amazingly little flame), plus I was on the Eat Guide cover as the token non-black ethnic-type and I wrote a fair number of the mini-reviews therein. (Audio of the show inside)

In any case, as usual Dan’s truly remarkable talent for putting guests at ease helped me settle in quickly – when I first got there, I must admit I was a sweaty, vibrating wreck due to hangover-induced coffee overload and blinding road rage from negotiating the obstacle course that is Charles St. currently. The highlight of the show has to be when the winner of Dan’s lil trivia challenge was won by no other than my new friend Macon Hardy, which apparently rendered me totally speechless for a good few seconds. Listen here:

And regarding fish tacos, Dan seemed to be unaware of their existence, which is too bad because they are thoroughly awesome (when done right). Also, on the show I mention they were invented in Encino, when in actuality they appear to have originated in Ensanada. Got my En-”s”-sound cities mixed up. Another friend messaged me right after the show, aghast that we were talking about fish tacos on NPR! Why I asked? – duh, fish taco is a euphemism for a certain part of the female anatomy. I always associated the term “pink taco” with vaginas, but I can see it both ways.

Recipe for above tamal pictured above here

Interesting fact is that the term “hot tamales” was apparently southern slang for, um, kitties, as was made popular by the great Robert Johnson in the double entendre-filled classic (what blues standard isn’t really?) “They’re Red Hot” (later covered notably by RHCP). Which makes the already repulsive “candy” Hot Tamales that much more unpalatable. I mean, seriously, that kind of sadisitc douche invents candy that hurts? But more importantly, this means Dan and I spent the whole show unwittingly talking about vaginas. On NPR. Cross another one off my lifetime to-do  list! Speaking of NPR, Dan and I both had a laugh at the fact that the first several callers asked about vegetarian, non-wheat, non-pork fat (i.e. kosher) tamales. Oh, public radio!

Last note on fish tacos, Macon revealed that her family makes “Rocko Tacos”, which are hard-shelled tacos filled with rockfish meat! A local version of fish tacos, how awesome is that? Whether or not this is prevalent on the Eastern Shore (where she’s from) I do not know, but I trust Macon will shed more light on the subject, hopefully complete with recipe, shortly. Got that Macon?

Before things get too crazy, I believe introductions are in order. I’m a 30-something guy living in Baltimore who started cooking for real mainly to impress girls. (Fellas – remember not to set the bar too high on the first meal!) The neighborhood I live in has only one small grocery store within easy walking distance and I don’t own a car. Plus, I’m pretty lazy. Consequently, I often have to make do with a painfully limited selection of items for my culinary adventures. On the plus side, this lack of choice forces a bit of creativity to stave off boredom and/or full blown Five Guys addiction. By no means do I think of myself a master chef, I routinely “discover” basic herbs like they were the dead sea scrolls and use them with reckless abandon for weeks at a time, but I’ve made some things that I am pretty proud of, and I am always learning. Of course, I would like to use nothing but the freshest and highest quality ingredients, but due to the aforementioned lack of options and laziness, plus an occasional bout of penny-pinching, I sometimes cut a corner or two.

Henry has graciously allowed me to post chronicles of my triumphs and failures in the kitchen. I would have liked to present these feats as normal recipes with a nice bulleted list of ingredients and such, but unfortunately, I am terrible with measurements because I never use them. I season and cook by eye and by feel, so any attempt by me to assign units of measurement to anything that I’ve made would most likely end up in disaster. Also, I usually drink when I cook, so I can never remember exactly how much of what I put into any given dish. Every meal is an adventure!

One day at work, where these things usually happen, I decided out of the blue that I was going to attempt some sort of pasta bake with my brand new Pyrex baking dish. I did a little research online to get the general idea of the standard cooking times, techniques, ingredients, etc., and stopped by the store on my way home.

Foolishly eschewing a list, and thereby almost certainly guaranteeing that I would forget something important, I gathered my ingredients with well-honed market-ninja skills. In no particular order, I picked up a medium yellow onion, a large green pepper, garlic, a large can of crushed tomatoes, sausage, and cheese. The idea had previously occurred to me to put one layer of sausage and one layer of pepperoni in the pasta bake, but all such thoughts were washed away when I saw the package of prosciutto ham glowing among its lesser deli meat brethren. That’s right, shit was about to get fancy! Everything else I needed I already had at home.

After some liquid courage to get me through this daunting new cooking challenge, I prepped everything that needed chopping, preheated the oven to 350 degrees, set a large skillet to medium heat, and put a pot of salted water on to boil.

First step was to brown up the sausage in the skillet. My local Italian sausage options are limited, so I ended up using a classic orange tube of Eskay pork sausage. I picked up the hot variety, partially because I always like a little kick, but mostly because I am always working to covertly build up my girlfriend’s tolerance for spicy foods. When the sausage was just browned, out went the fat into the special “sausage/bacon grease that I’ll probably never use for anything because there are little sausage bits in it and that is gross” coffee can that I keep in the fridge.

Next to join the sausage in the pan was the can of crushed tomatoes, about half a cup of olive oil, five or so cloves of minced garlic, the whole diced onion, half the diced green pepper, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning (oregano and thyme), sugar (just a shake), and red pepper flakes (amount depending on desired spiciness level). I let this simmer at medium heat, occasionally stirring and tasting, and adding more of this or that as necessary while I prepared the pasta.

I used whatever pasta I had at home, which happened to be egg noodles and thin spaghetti. It was kind of a weird combination for something like this, but they did the job. While the sauce and meat mixture simmered, I cooked the noodles per the instructions. The spaghetti took a little longer for al dente so it went in first.

When the pasta was ready, the tomato and sausage mixture had been simmering for about 20 minutes. Ideally, I would have liked to let it cook out for much longer, like I would if I was making spaghetti sauce, but I was getting pretty goddam hungry. I spread the cooked pasta on the bottom of the baking dish as the first layer. In retrospect, I should have mixed the pasta and sauce mix together before adding both to the pan. Instead, I added the sauce mix over the noodle layer. Unfortunately, this created patches of dried up noodles on the bottom where the sauce didn’t settle through during baking.

With the base layers down, next came a layer of cheese. I used the Sargento Italian Cheese Blend, which consists of shredded mozzarella, provolone, asiago, romano, fontina, and parmesan. It took almost the whole package to cover the entire dish.

Next up: the big guns! I can’t attest to the quality of the prosciutto brand that I used because I am far from a connoisseur, but I thought it was quite tasty. The lovely strips of meat went on top of the cheese layer as shown below.

Finally, I covered the prosciutto with the rest of the cheese and a sprinkling of Italian-style bread crumbs, just because it seemed like the right thing to do.

To cover or not to cover? I couldn’t find a majority consensus online. This quickly proved to be a moot point because I discovered that my list-snubbing ways had caused me to forget the aluminum foil. The matter settled, I popped the whole thing into the over for about 20 minutes. When it was ready, the top was nicely brown and the cheese was bubbling.

The results? Not too shabby! I was pretty happy with how it turned out, and there were no complaints from the little lady. Good thing, because I made enough to live on for a week. Thanks to my lack of foil, I had to cram the leftovers into multiple square Gladware containers.

How it could have been better: I thought the sauce was a little bland. This I attribute to the short cooking time before I added it to the bake. Also, I would have liked the sauce to be a little saucier, I may need to add more liquid next time. Finally, more meat! That tube of sausage was stretched a little thin when spread around the whole dish. Maybe that additional layer of pepperoni shouldn’t have been omitted after all….

I definitely considered this dish a success for a first try. Next time, allotting more time for the sauce, adding a bit more substance, and using a more traditional pasta should really smooth out the rough edges. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

Oh poor poor instant ramen! It’s shocking that so many people have no concept of how broad of a variety exists, and the enormous meal potential that resides within each humble little pack. It suffers a stigma in the US, in the inintiated’s mind mainly the domain of indigent college students. I must admit that even many of my very own friends know only of Top or Cup o Noodles (which are in fact made by Nissin, the company that marketed the original instant ramen invented by the late Momofuku Ando). Yes these particular friends are non-Asian, but seriously people it’s 200 freakin 9 already! Get to know ramen.

The range of flavors (and quality)  is truly awesome, and with just a few tweaks, a sub one dollar portion of food can be made into a fine repast for two. With some additional time and effort investment the horrifyingly unhealthy aspects can even be somehwat mitigated. In the next several days, I’ll be posting detailed reviews about some more interesting brands, stuff I couldn’t fit into my Citypaper article this week, which includes a general overview and some buying/cooking tips.

That’s right, I made me some PIT BISON! I think this may be a first, since searching “pit bison” returns nothing having to do with food, except for links pointing to yours truly…. It’s the largest mammal native to the US – the original American red meat. And it was grown right here in Maryland to boot, at Gunpowder Bison and Trading Company up in Monkton (see pic above). I only recently learned that a bison farming industry even existed in this state, but apparently there are around 13 farms of varying size. Maryland bison, incidentally, will be the subject of my next Citypaper article.

We drove up to the farm to pick up this beautiful (pretty expensive at $8.59/lb) top round roast, but Gunpowder Bison also participates in the fledgling Harbor East farmer’s market on Saturdays. I assumed it would be larger than a beef top round, but it weighed in at 3-4 lbs., same as beef. You will note that it is much darker, a visual cue to the nutritional properties of bison:

I followed the same process as for pit beef, applying a very simple salt/pepper/garlic rub:

You may notice a couple things in the next pic: 1) briquettes – I cooked the pit bison at a friend’s house to christen his new grill, and thought it too douchey to bring my own charcoal (I prefer lump charcoal for grilling); 2) the burgers (also bison) have holes in the middle – that’s a little cooking trick I use for fast, even cooking in my burgers:

The bison top round, charring away nicely:

The finished pit bison, resting:

Slicing thin is even more important here, because bison is denser and leaner than beef, so although I was too humble to bring my own charcoal, I was insistent on bringing my trusty meat slicer:

Slices of incredibly beefy – almost richly so – pit bison:

All tasters were quite impressed, in fact I would say blown away, by the aroma, flavor and texture of the pit bison. The charred “bark” was a bit dry, but the less well done interior was moist and extremely savory. Think of slightly salty, slightly bloody beef, times three and with no metallic hints. It tasted intense but clean, with richness coming from the flesh as opposed to fat. The pit beef went so fast I actually did not have time to get a pic of a completed sandwich. One important note is that I didn’t see anyone put any condiments on their sandwiches, a true testament to the bison’s deliciousness and juiciness. But then I was pretty drunk by then, so I could be totally wrong. Bison, especially a less tender and lean cut like top round, is unsuitable for cooking past medium doneness, because bison is so lean and dense. I actually brought along a few pieces of beef top round, which I then cooked to medium-well for folks who prefer their meat overcooked, heh. More on Gunpowder Bison and bison meat and recipes coming soon.

-Henry Hong

The weck was a bit soggy, but the all-important crystal salt and caraway seeds were intact. The roll itself had slightly more substance and chewiness than a kaiser roll, with a slightly denser crumb:

The beef itself was a far cry from whatever it was the Road Food folks were serenading – slightly-thick-ish slices of well done beef. It was definitely roasted and not some commercial pre-made stuff, but still it was a tad dry, and very lean. I’m guessing it was top round:

Anyway the meat had decent beefy, roasty flavor, but no real discernible seasoning. That is apparently the weck’s job, and I gotta say, though the roll would be way too salty on its own, combined with the bland beef it was a pretty winning combo. The caraway added a bit to flavor of course, but the salt was really the star – it’s a clear, crystal salt that has a very clean flavor and a texture that’s somewhere between crispy, crunchy and sorta icy. Very enjoyable. It seems some believe the salt on Schwabl’s weck is sea salt, but I couldn’t find any conclusive answers.

The only problem was on my particular bun, the salt was unevenly distributed, which resulted in some too salty and some bland bites. I’m hoping this was anomalous. Also, and I don’t know if this is a regional thing or an intentional consideration (re the salt on the weck), but the sandiwch had very evenly stacked meat, i.e. was not mounded - something that I really appreciate.

-Henry Hong

Well, my nightmare scenario has come to fruition. I was wrong. On top of that, I was wrong about food. Worse still, I was wrong about meat. And to top it all off, I was proved wrong by a guy with frosted tips and pinky rings. Chaps Pit Beef was featured on Food Networks’ Diner’s, Drive-Ins and Dives , and my theory about their using precooked roast beef seems to have been debunked. But it was revealed that they use bottom round instead of top round, and add no seasoning whatsoever, which may be why the flavor leaves many, including myself, unimpressed. But I gotta give it to Chaps for being able to turn out such tender bottom round. Also, it was cool to see that the owner and I share the Bulldog as our favorite sandwich. I still prefer Bada Bing Bada Beef, and even The Canopy, to Chaps. And not to sound too self-aggrandizing, but my homemade pit beef blows any of those three away – and it’s easy to make, try it yourself and I guarantee* you will agree.

*I, Henry Hong, hereby guarantee that if my pit beef recipe is followed closely, and the resulting pit beef is not significantly tastier than that of Chaps, Canopy, or Bada Bing Bada Beef, I will buy you a shot of bourbon at a bar of my choosing.

-Henry Hong

Like here if player is broken

Kimmel’s cliche, waka-waka zinger aside, I think it’s clear pRpnSJMcC hasn’t barbecued a rib in his life. Actually, that’s a pretty strong statement given how long he’s lived, but certainly not in a good long while and not on a regular basis.First, there’s the staccato stammering, excessive blinking, and repeating words to buy himself time to make shit up. Usually clear signs of prevarication, but I will concede that in pRpnSJMcC’s case, it could be attributed to his general suckiness at public speaking and/or general weirdness. I digress, but the guy looks like he’s wearing an Edgar suit when he tries to smile doesn’t he? Anyway, more telling is his boasting of being a “barbecue…grill…person”, not just because of the bad grammar, but because an actual “barbecue…person” would not include grilling in his/her skill set, and certainly not place it on par with barbecuing. Furthermore, people even halfway serious about barbecuing can instantly rattle of a detailed description of how they make their ribs. It’s true, go ahead and test it. PRpnSJMcC on the other hand, can only manage to blurt out a few obvious keywords.

Upon further analysis, I guess Kimmel could have been trying to stanch the bleeding and bail pRpnSJMcC’s ass out by lobbing that tired punchline. Conclusion, I call bullshit! I don’t think John McCain knows jack about barbecue, which isn’t so bad, but lying about it is class-A douchebaggery.