Pseudoplastic fluids of interest

Specifically catsup/catchup/ketchup...but blood and whipped cream are cool too.
It's renal test week, which means I've been occasionally hitting drive thrus to maximize my time for studying/thinking about studying but not actually studying and instead doing things that will have no impact on anyone's lives whatsoever (Hello random person who accidentally googled their way here...welcome to my food blog).

Perhaps it's the economy, but has anyone noticed that these places are in the practice of not giving you ketchup? You have to specifically ask for it, and even then it's a bit of a crapshoot as to whether they actually take the time to toss a few packets in for you. What the hell? In order to ensure my fries never went ketchup-less again, I decided to make it myself. This also coincided with a sale on cans of San Marazano tomatoes as well as Vidalia onion season. In any case:

I started with pickling spice-infused cider vinegar


Sauteed bell pepper, vidalia onions, and garlic


Added the tomatoes, cooked it down, strained and added the vinegar and some brown sugar, then blended it up to make this:


It gets redder as the blendy air escapes and it cools. It's pretty frackin' delicious...but it is missing that sweet diabetes-inducing tang of High Fructose Corn Syrup.
*The Corn Refiner's Association would like to emphasize that freebasing HFCS is just as safe as eating corn, and in no way leads to any negative health problems including but not limited to morbid obesity. Enjoy the completely safe and all natural taste of HFCS today, and visit Sweet Surprise for scientific research funded entirely by exorbitant corn refining profits.*

Date Auction

I was auctioned off to raise money for a group that's going to go on a surgical trip to Haiti (check out The Emory Medishare Site for more info). For my date, I decided to cook a meal based on the winner's favorite movies. In the end, two ladies pooled their money to buy me, and they came up with 5 different movies.

West Side Story:


Puerto Rico Roll (like a california roll, but made with fried plantain, avocado, shredded chicken, and sofrito-seasoned sushi rice)

Pretty Woman:

Terribly blurry picture...sorry.

Pasta alla Bella Donna (like pasta puttanesca, but fancier. Green peppercorns and capers, manzanilla olives, oven-dried heirloom tomatoes)

Monsoon Wedding:

Tandoori game hen with aloo gobhi mash. (no picture of this one)

Chocolat:

Another crappy picture...this one cuz i had to use flash to offset the "mood lighting."

Risotto al cioccolato, Dark chocolate orange and ginger creme brulee, and Safron-infused coconut milk and white chocolate ice cream.


I think they enjoyed the meal, though one of them was crying at the end...I'm hoping it wasn't because the food was so bad and more because the ending to "West Side Story" is kind of a downer.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

So I was busy on the actual day, but it worked out because it gave my homemade corned beef an extra day to brine. It's actually not quite as cool when not still red inside, but I suppose it's healthier, though I'd be willing to subject my body to a bit of curing salt to complete the look. Delicious with a Guinness shake. I just mixed ketchup with the sour cream-based sauce to make dressing for Reubens.

Fried Things

Whenever I get the urge to deep fry something, I usually go on a streak of deep frying things over the next couple days before getting rid of the oil...it'd be a waste not to right?
First was the fried chicken sandwich from Bakesale Betty's, but instead of buttermilk breading which takes time, I just panko crusted it. This was mainly an excuse to make the slaw that they put on the sandwich. It's almost as good when you make it at home. I used cilantro instead of parsley.


After a partial oil refresh and filtering, I decided to try out munchkin-like doughnut holes from a Korean mix.


They were so chewy that I decided to cover them in chocolate in order to hide the fact that they didn't work.


Finally, with all that leftover slaw that I had, I decided that I needed something fried to eat along with it, so I made wings. They were lightly dusted with potato starch before being blanched, dried, then fried again. The sauce was butter, soy, ginger, sriracha and chili-garlic sauce with a splash of balsamic vinegar.


That'll be it for home-fried foods for a long time. Once I get it out of my system and my apartment smells like deep-friedness I won't fry anything for a while. Especially with our cardio module coming up, although you think I would've learned after our Nutrition module. Then again, those two weeks were complete bullshit.

These same people must google "I'm an Idiot"

The stat tracking service built into my blog tells me that people in the US, Canada, UK, and the Netherlands have all landed on my page via the google search "Foods I Don't Like," and this term accounts for about 70% of keyword activity. In fact, I'm pretty sure if you google "Foods I Don't Like," my blog is the number one site! Whooo!!! We did it!

So first off...WELCOME PICKY EATERS! YOU HAVE A TERRIBLE PERSONALITY FLAW! SACK UP AND JUST EAT WITHOUT COMPLAINING! UNLESS IT CAUSES YOUR THROAT TO SWELL UP AND COMPROMISE YOUR AIRWAY, CHOMP IT DOWN AND SHUT YOUR YAPPER!

Second...why did you have to perform a google search for foods that you don't like? Isn't that really one of those things that you should know better than google?

Failures...Tasty Failures

In an issue of Men's Health awhile back, Eric Ripert talked about Egg and Soldiers being a pretty healthy late-night post-drinking food. That's where you soft boil eggs then dunk sticks of toast into them. But what if you don't want your late night drunk food to be healthy? What if, like me, your after-party routine is usually Steak n' Shake? I remember my sister telling me about a cleverly named "Fried Egg" at SPQR. It was a soft boiled egg that was then breaded and deep fried. I tried to replicate it.

First I boil-simmered eggs (four minutes) and then dunked them in ice water. Peeled, floured, dipped in egg (eggs dipped in egg...that one was new), and panko breaded, followed by a quick fry. They ended up looking nice enough:



I then cut them open to find out if it worked and...fail!



They ended up being medium-boiled eggs. I doubt if the super-quick fry was enough to harden the yolk that much (especially since I had cooled them down), so they must've become medium-boiled in the actual boiling phase. The whites were plenty firm to peel without any trouble, so next time it'll be all about getting the perfect soft-boiled time right. Still, I put them on toast and topped with another failure:



I tried to replicate Papalote's delicious salsa, but it really needs to be made with a powerful blender (I wonder if a stick blender would work?), because my food processor left sand-sized flecks of pepitas. I knew I should've gotten that 1000-watt blender on woot when I had the chance.

A few Atlanta eats

So I've moved to Atlanta for medical school. Just like I had a "First Post From New Apartment" when I moved into my Amherst place, I figured I should post something or other from my new residence. I am excited that I now have a gas stove to play around with, and have ordered a round-bottom wok/ring off of amazon. There's also a Whole Foods right next to my complex that I can walk to. Unfortunately, it isn't that large so it's missing things like bulk spices, has a limited selection of bulk grains and staples, and doesn't even have puffed kamut cereal, which means it's difficult to make the granola on my sister's blog. They were running a special on bone-in pork chops however, so I made this:


Brined pork chops with mushroom risotto and grilled zucchini. I installed some ceiling light fixtures from IKEA that can accommodate compact fluorescent bulbs, but food looks disgusting under them. Oh well.
Atlanta is home of The Varsity, which has curbside service.


It doesn't feel that cool in a Honda Civic coupe...the car just feels kinda cramped and it gets really hot, but if I had my dad's old Chevy Nova I'm sure it'd be super badass. They're famous for chili dogs (apparently they serve over two miles of hot dogs each day) and the chili slaw dog was freaking delicious.


Onion rings are good, but fries are so-so. As great as it is that places like In-N-Out and The Varsity freshly cut their potatoes...this usually means that they aren't fried twice and end up being a bit soggy.
On the drive down here, somewhere at a gas station in South Carolina, I had a fried chicken biscuit, which was the most delicious food item I've ever gotten from a gas station.


I'm sure there'll be more stuff to write about...either that or med school will occupy my entire existence and I'll never post on this thing again.