Hwe Dup Bap

As far as last meal’s go, for me this is it—hwe dup bap. It contains all of my favorites: sashimi, salad greens, rice, and something spicy to linger on my tongue. What lingers is cho gochujang, a vinegary pepper sauce that some Koreans prefer as their sashimi dipping sauce. It’s the addition of this sauce that differentiates it from chirashi sushi, which I find quite dull.

It’s easy to assemble and requires no cooking aside from the rice. Or leave out the rice and save those carbs! It’s just as good without the rice. I suppose it’s the perfect summer meal, but for me it’s always a good idea.

Hwe Dup Bap
1 cup cooked rice
.5 lb. sashimi of choice (sliced into bite size pieces)
4 lettuce leaves, chopped
5 shiso leaves, chopped
1 handful daikon sprouts (these have a kick to them)

Cho gochujang
2 spoonfuls of gochujang
½ spoonful of sugar
3 tb. vinegar

For the cho gochujang, I always freestyle it à la Rachel Ray—glug this, eyeball that. Overall just start with the gochujang and adjust according to your palate. I discovered if you use seasoned rice vinegar then you can omit the sugar. The consistency should be similar to ranch dressing.



1. Spoon rice into bowl.



2. Layer lettuce, chopped shiso leaves, and daikon sprouts on top of rice Add sashimi pieces.
3. Add desired amount of cho gochujang. I would say start with 2 tablespoons.
4. Fold ingredients together.

Heirloom tomato and burrata pizza

Seriously, who the fuck am I? I'm thinking about putting this post together and making myself barf because of my smarmy San Francisco foodie-ness. I mean, look at the NAME OF THE PIZZA, for chrissakes!!

I'll keep it short. I spied some burrata at the Trader's and chose it as my ingredient du semaine - I learned through the Internet that it is often eaten simply with heirloom tomatoes as a salad, and after coming to the end of that road, here we are. I looked up burrata and heirloom tomatoes and pizza and found this blog post about pitfire pizza in l.a. and their burrata pie. i took the description of the pizza from the blog and recreated it:

On the crust is a layer of their tomato sauce that is then topped with caramelized onions. ... Then of course, there’s the burrata cheese. In case you’re wondering, burrata cheese is mozzarella cheese that has cream in the center of it, which makes it extra creamy when melted. Why more people don’t put it on pizzas will forever be a wonder to me. I could honestly be fine with this pizza as it is now, but then the guys at Pitfire go and cover the whole thing with fresh arugula and drizzle it with a hazelnut pesto. Hazelnut pesto!

I used TJ's whole wheat dough and made my own carmelized onions (MAN they make pizza tasty). I love pizzas with salads on top of them, but this one just wouldn't fit the arugula, so I had it on the side. I added heirloomies and basil and didn't bother with the hazelnut pesto (my yuppie-ness has boundaries!).

slow-cooker jook

november has befallen us, and with it, the scourge of the season - the icky cold. i felt miserable yesterday and made myself a big honkin' crock pot full of jook (gruel, as K calls it).

i actually didn't start to like jook (aka congee, aka "jewk" as biff [a jew!!] calls it) until very recently, in the last 5 years. i discovered its glories on a trip to hong kong in 2008 at the breakfast buffet of the salisbury YMCA hong kong (our preferred place of residence in hong kong). it was laid out with all the toppings alongside - i never even knew you could put soy sauce in it! my parents always make it very sparsely. i went crazy with cilantro and green onions (what do i always say about MAXIMUM ASIAN FLAVOR) and have never looked back.

i've made jook at home a handful of times, and i'm still not quite convinced that the time/effort put into it is worth it, considering you can get this meal for less than $5 usually (my favorite place is hing lung on broadway near stockton in chinatown). the other thing is that i LOVE to eat jook with the oily bread, and it's hard to find good oily bread around the inner sunset (the white sunset, as K calls it). i almost would rather not eat jook if i don't have that deep-fried bread! i remember driving crazily up and down clement street looking for that bread one day to eat with my jook. also i usually just make it with whatever meat i have around, but i prefer to eat it with fish or ground pork. so, jury's still out on making this at home.

i based it on recipes from both the minimalist and the traverse city record-eagle's blog but there doesn't seem to be a wrong way to make it. this time i threw in some leftover roast pork and sliced chinese sausage (in addition to ginger) and topped it with cilantro, green onions, and a dash of soy sauce and sesame oil. today i'm feeling much better. still thinking bout that oily bread.

parmesan chicken

i've made this recipe from ina garten for the past five years: it's simple, and the mix of flavors (salty parmesan and arugula with sour lemon vinaigrette) and textures is great. i have my mom to thank for this recipe - she loves ina garten, and i do too! i try not to eat too much deep fried food, and eating it with a big salad like this makes it feel "healthier."

be sure to use chicken breast, and pound them good (HEH) after you put some saran wrap or plastic over them puppies. dredge em in a mix of flour/salt/pepper, then egg/water, then bread crumbs (i used panko here, but i think the seasoned ones you buy at the supermarket are tastier) and parmesan.



fry em up in butter and olive oil and lay em over a nice bed of salad with lemon vinaigrette. don't forget to shear off some parmesan shards onto your salad for maximum umami!

Why Making Dinner Is a Good Idea

A really interesting post from Wired on why making your own meals may stave off obesity.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I would assume that most Americans' first baking experience is with chocolate chip cookies. I can't recall if mine was or not (though I think my first cooking experience was scrambled eggs at age 6, which also sparked a love for lighting matches and gas stove pilot lights. Yikes!). Anyway, if you follow the typical crap recipe, oh say, on the back of a Toll House semi-sweet morsels package, you'll end up with boring-ass cookies. They're fine, just not wow. Kinda flat, nothing unusual.

It was at about age 11 that I came across this chocolate chip cookie recipe on All Recipes (my, how far the site has come since that first find!). It was this recipe and another one from the same site that I've been using ever since, and both recipes get rave reviews every time. The ingredients are basically the same as the Toll House one, but ever-so-slight tweaking makes all the difference. These cookies, aside from the impressive size (if you want. It's not a problem to make them smaller.), appear and taste as if bought from a bakery. Why? A nice, dense, chewy texture. I'll give it away now that it's because the recipe calls for melting the butter first before creaming it with the white and brown sugars. The boring recipe just calls for softened butter. The ratio of brown to white sugar in this winning recipe is also greater, so I guess the melted butter-and-brown sugar combo yields a sort of caramelized effect. Aaaand there's one less egg white than the typical recipe. Apparently yolkier is better. Anyway: Winner!

"Best Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies"

2 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 c. unsalted butter, melted (again, SO KEY)

1 c. packed brown sugar

1/2 c. white sugar

1 tsb. vanilla extract

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips (I prefer chunks or oversized chips for dramatic effect, sort of to match the cookie texture)

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees F. If you're using a non-stick baking sheet, no need to butter/grease it or cover it with parchment paper.

Sift the flour, baking soda and salt and set aside.

In another mixing bowl, cream the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar.

Looks good, doesn't it? Not.

Next, beat in the egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract until light and creamy.

Mix in the dry, sifted ingredients a little at a time. Doing it all at once will give you a kitchen covered in flour and a batter full of lumps.

Finally, stir in the chocolate chips. Look how shiny and silky the batter looks!

If you want the giant cookies, drop the batter using a 1/4 c. scoop, spacing the dough balls about three inches apart. Otherwise, rounded tablespoonfuls will give you the normal-sized cookies. Bake for about 15–17 minutes, or until the edges are lightly toasted or the cookies reach your desired shade of a perfect golden-brown. Let the cookies cool on the sheet for a couple of minutes before moving to wire racks to finish cooling. Obviously, devour almost immediately and down with a glass of milk.

Yields 18 massive or about 36 normal-sized cookies.

P.S. I brought two of these cookies with me when I attempted to donate blood. Good call. Just saying.