Tohru Lorenzo's page

chevreuil roti, sauce au vin rouge et aux framboises

2012-01-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

Holidays. Once they start, they are wonderful. I have a lot of time to think and cook.

Today, I cooked a fillet of venison and served it with pomme puree, shiitake mushroom, and red wine sauce with black pepper and a hint of raspberry. The herb on top is fried thyme.

christmas/new year vacation

2011-12-21T22:10:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow morning, I have one thing to do at university. After that, I will officially be in vacation until the second week of January. About a month ago, I was throughly waiting for this, but as the holidays came closer and closer, I began to feel "Why do we have holidays???" I mean, no seminar, no math talks with friends for a few weeks? Come on...

A month before the vacation starts: I'm going to visit this place and that place and go eat at my favorite restaurants, etc.

A week before the vacation: Vacance, vacance!!!

A day before the vacation: Seriously? Well, I can study what I wanted to for the last two months.... My next talk will be a few weeks later.... Oh, but I still need to write up interim reportS (plural!) to submit to the Department. Seriously?

So for the next few weeks, I will write some reports, prepare for my next talk. I've already decided to talk about Galois cohomology, Tate-Shafarevich group, touching upon the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, and roughly introduce etale cohomology in one talk. I can't resist but finally mention BSD because this is one of the first things that attracted me to mathematics. I should really study basics of intersection theory by April.

new wine store

2011-12-10T20:56:00.000-08:00

I recently found a wine store just two subway station away where they keep their wine in a large cellar. I bought bottles of Savigny-les-Beaune and Cote de Beaune-Villages. They were of the fantastic quality. No oxidized crap. So I decided to say bye to the other wine shops where they put supposed-to-be good wine on the shelf.

sole meuniere with porcini risotto

2011-12-02T06:20:00.000-08:00

Today's dish: sole meuniere with porcini risotto. It was rather good. I will develop this dish further in the future.

sauce madeira

2011-12-01T02:26:00.001-08:00

In my tiny apartment kitchen, I cannot work on garnish. So here is the dish I at least worked on the sauce.

How to make sauce madeira (my way):

1) Sweat mirepoix or whatever you want depending on the beef stock you have.

2.5) if your stock is not gelatinous enough for its flavor, singer (with flour).

2) deglaze with sherry vinegar, cook to remove the acidity.

3) deglaze with cognac.

4) add madeira and reduce

5) add chicken stock and beef stock with bouquet garni.

6) simmer for, i dont know, for like 20mins if you cut your mirepoix finely.

7) pass through a piece of cloth for three times.

8) put in the fridge until needed.

9) Finish the sauce in whatever way you want right before serving your dish.

beef steak with sauce chasseur

2011-11-24T04:33:00.000-08:00

I made this for dinner.

I was in the mood for something light, so I served the meat with sauce chasseur and vegetables boiled and then coated in butter. Here is a photo of sauce chasseur. Sauce making is my favorite part of cooking.
How to make sauce chasseur:

1) Go to a restaurant and taste sauce chasseur. Remember the taste.

2) Sweat onions and mushrooms in butter.

3) Add white wine and reduce.

4) Add sauce tomate and sauce demi-glace, beef stock, glace de viande and water, or fond de veau and water. Simmer for a while.

5) Pass the liquid through a piece of cloth a few times.

6) Whisk in butter, chopped parsley and adjust seasoning.

avant le petit dejeuner.

2011-11-21T13:49:00.000-08:00

Woke up at 5am, finished one proof (homology of a simplicial set is isomorphic to singular homology of its geometric realization) up to details by 6:30am. Yeah, I got it as I got out of the bed. YES! The proof is short but uses skeletal filtration of a simplicial set and a CW complex, normalized chain complex of a simplicial abelian groups, and spectral sequence. I kind of like this. It also clarifies computation of group homology via bar resolution.

Yesterday was like that too. Got the main idea of the day before breakfast and pondered upon it by dinner. Nothing really came out of it, though. But it remotely lead to this morning's proof in a way.

I still want to understand that X. and S.(|X.|) have the same homotopy type. Here, X. is a Kan complex. Also, about the Dold-Kan correspondence.

I guess today would be a colorful day.

steak au poivre and others

2011-11-13T12:03:00.000-08:00

Last week, I watched Julie and Julia, so I decided to indulged myself on Saturday in my ultimate hobby, cooking.

At first, I thought of making something with foie gras, but they did not have one. But instead, I got hold of nice beef tenderloin.

First, I made sauteed beef with lentils and wild mushrooms, sauce madeira. (The frist photo I took while I was already eating.)

Then, although I did not want to eat two beef dishes for dinner, because the beef was of such a good quality and the wine I was drinking called for it, I made a favorite dish of mine: steak au poivre. (The second photo)

I cooked fondant potatoes and asparagus for the garnish. I do not usually bother to turn potatoes--I like the skins--this special beef required turned fondant potatoes.

I had 2007 Crozes-Hermitage par M. Chapoutier.

Because I love steak au poivre, so simple, I share my recipe (of this one) with you.

STEAK AU POIVRE

Ingredients:

For the meat:

Beef tenderloin

Black pepper

Rock salt

For the sauce:

Onions

Garlic

Thyme, bay leaf, parsley

beef stock or fond de veau

Green peppercorns

White wine

Cognac (I did not have cognac this time, but I usually use one.)

Double cream

Butter

For the garnish:

Asparagus

Potatoes

Beef stock or Chicken stock

Thyme, bay leaf, parsley

Instructions:

For the meat:

Season it with salt and coat it with black pepper. It is not going to be spicy. Literally coat it with pepper. Saute it to medium or medium rare.

For the sauce, Sweat chopped onions and lightly crushed garlic in butter until the natural sweetness comes through. Deglaze the pan with white wine. Add fond de veau. Cook it slowly for about 15 minutes. Sieve the mixture. Put the liquid back in the pan. Add double milk. Monter au beurre. Add green peppercorns. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper.

For the garnish:

Boil the (peeled) asparagus. And then, coat it in butter in a pan.

As for the potatoes. Turn the potatoes, Brown them in butter and grape seed (or olive) oil. Cook them in beef/chicken stock with garlic thyme, bay leaf and parsley.

Noel

2011-11-09T12:41:00.000-08:00

Je pense a Noel.

Que ferai-je?

Qu'est-ce que je vais preparer le diner de Noel?

Mais, pour qui?

Je vais inviter mes amis chez moi?

foie gras, lentilles du pays, pommard

2011-11-05T08:18:00.000-07:00

I've just had foie gras and I'm having a nice glass of Pommard. Where? At home. I simply sauteed it and had it with lentilles du pays.

I needed to have foie gras AS IT IS because the one I had last time in a restaurant was RIDICULOUS and I was about to hate this wonderful liver.

Today, I re-discovered, having this GENEROUS portion cooked in the SIMPLEST way, that foie gras deserves the highest honor.

As mush as the liver, I enjoyed the lentils. I always like lentils, but this time, I got it right by chance. I wish I could cook lentils like that every time.

I will go to Tokyo in December, if I have time, I will visit the restaurant I like there. Yeah, they used lentils for the fish course...It's one of the few restaurants I still remember what I had a year ago.

algebraic topology

2011-10-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

I've recently started to study algebraic K-theory. Naturally, I realized that I needed to review basics of algebraic topology. I reopened "Algebraic Topology" by Allen Hatcher. (To be more precise, the book was not printed when I first studied it from author's homepage.) It's been how many years, I don't know. Now I realize that the book is very reader friendly. Back then when I first studied algebraic topology, my algebra was just learnt brand new and had no knowledge of homological algebra. The book was reader friendly even then, but now, I can savor the heart of the book, GEOMETRY. It is a beautiful book.

I should really reread Hartshorne's Algebraic Geometry this semester. The goal of this semester is to gain basic knowledge of (to an extent) algebraic K-theory of schemes. Maybe I will have some fun with group (co)homology too if I have enough time. Maybe too optimistic?

Dinner on Sunday

2011-10-16T12:34:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, to celebrate the last few hours of the weekend, I had dinner at "the" bistro. It started with pate de volaille (chef's complement), and then canape with Saint-Maure, the most amazing lamb shank with couscous, a GENEROUS amount of creamiest epoisses de Bourgogne (again, chef's complement). To be precise, I got a whole of epoisses and told that I could eat as much as I wanted. :) Incroyable!

As for wine, I had gewurztraminer for the first glass. I always like that grape. Honestly yum! Then moved on to Argentinian Malbec-Merlot. It went well with Saint-Maure; S.-M. was baked in the oven with a bit of black pepper, and it was YUM. Maybe something earthier was better for the lamb, but that Argentinian wine was good enough. But while I was thinking of that, I got a glass (later, it became glasses) of some Italian wine (leather-like) whose names nor variety of grape I forgot. It was nice!

It was ridonculously DELIIIIIICIOUS (and substantial)!

A decent Japanese restaurant on campus I finally found!

2011-10-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

I finally found a decent restaurant on campus. They serve Japanese dishes. I went there for lunch today. After the first bite, I knew that it was prepared by a professionally trained cook. (I do not know it for sure, but I think I'm right. It was "skillful".) Professional or not professional, it doesn't really matter. It was delicious, well-prepared, and nicely seasoned. Most of all, I enjoyed it. I finally enjoyed eating on campus!

With the good lunch, I could study twice as efficiently as before. It really matters.

The price was modest too. I'll have lunch there from now on.

cafeteria food

2011-10-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

The thing is...it sucks. Yesterday's experience was typical. At 6pm, I was so much in the mood to stay in my office and work on mathematics after having dinner on campus. I'm well aware of the quality of the food they serve, but I did not care. I just wanted to keep studying. I was happy. My adrenalin was high. Yes, math is exciting! I was like that. So I decided to go to the cafeteria--since there is no restaurant near campus--I thought there should be something I can grab to eat. I was not even expecting proper dinner. I know well enough that they cannot cook any kind of proper meal. I stepped in the cafeteria. I noticed:

1) They do not change their menu ever. Well, they have grilled fish (one single kind of fish) these days. That's an improvement. Well done! But it's just that. Everything else is deep fried. Absolutely no care nor skill to cook. There was a sauteed pork and mushrooms, though. I told them to show me what they have--I immediately knew it was not properly cooked--so of course, I stayed away from it.

2) They cannot even serve a bowl of rice of consistent quality. Shame.

3) Tofu is the lowest quality of all. Come on! I'm happy to pay extra 50 yen. Just get decent tofu! And decent soy sauce.

4) People working there probably think that their food is good enough.

5) Students actually eat there. I boycott deep-fried fish and meat aside from a few dishes which require deep frying and for which that cooking method actually works.

So I ended up getting a soup. Just that. No more study; went back to my place. I went to the local bistro near my apartment and had a proper meal with three different kinds of nice wine.

I really shouldn't go to that cafeteria again. It is disgusting, irritating, really bad for my mental health. Far better to have sandwiches. If only they could tell good food from bad food....If only they hire a proud professional cook--seasoning is almost always off. They disgust me. A shame to the food industry.

a baby in the house!

2011-09-18T09:19:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow morning, my sister is coming back from the hospital with her newborn baby!

Naturally(?), I'm going to cook lunch for her, her husband (who is my friend since I was in college) and my parents. I've just finished prepping for that.

The dish has six parts: protein, sauce, pomme puree and three little things which hopefully accentuate different flavors in the dish.

If I cook the meat medium--hopefully medium rare--(70% success rate), make smooth pomme puree (90% success rate) and make an acceptable sauce (for this particular sauce, 70%), I can pull this off because the three other little things are fool-proof. The possibility that I can make something edible is 45%. On top of this, I have never cooked this dish and I'm going to tamper with the classic sauce. I have cooked each part of it, but I came up with this combination only today.

It is a gamble.

So why will I not cook what I'm confident with? I cannot find ingredients here in my hometown, where I stay for summer.

fillet of beef with potato gratin (Dauphinoise)

2011-09-15T07:36:00.000-07:00

Note to self: Use sirloin instead of tenderloin for this dish. Fillet of beef, especially wagyu is too delicate to take it all. The sauce--although it was delicious in itself--doesn't go well with fillet cooked rare. This sauce is better served with more robust cuts of meat. Dauphinoise potato was alright.

And the pan was too hot....

i became an uncle.

2011-09-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

My sister gave birth to a baby girl at noon today. It was a big baby: 3,800g and 53cm. She already moves a lot. So adorable.

On her 0-th birthday, I made two dishes. One was just alright (roasted chicken thigh with mushroom sauce), but the other one was full of flavor and had so much potential. It is just cow's liver with caramelized onion. But the sweetness of onion and the acidity of vinegar complemented the richness of liver well. It went well with Bordeaux. The difficult part is to cook the liver properly. I need to get used to that.

coq au vin

2011-08-31T18:51:00.000-07:00

There was a nice piece of chicken, so I made coq au vin. I skipped the Burgundian garnish. I wasn't exactly in the mood for cooking, you see. Just wanted something simple. Not bad.

lamb with sauce madeira

2011-07-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

Another dish of mine. I had a fortune to discuss fond de veau with the chef of the restaurant I love and frequent to. I venture to say that I was inspired somehow about what fond is. Since then, I think my sauces got improved a little bit. There is still a long way to go, but maybe I'm in the right direction. This dish was served (to myself, yes, only to myself) with sauce madeira.

I hope when the summer vacation starts, someone will have time to come to my apartment with a bottle of wine to eat my dishes with me!

salmon with tomato and truffle sauce

2011-07-11T02:39:00.001-07:00

It is a dish for summer.

duck

2011-04-25T02:16:00.000-07:00

I moved to Nagoya and I've been having a wonderful time so far.

I found duck in a supermarket, so I made sauteed duck breast, etuve of vegetables. The sauce is naturally based on duck jus.

I had glasses of Sainte Colombe (Cotes de Castillon) 2007 with it.

vin de jour

2011-04-04T03:30:00.000-07:00

nous allons boire 2006 savigny-les-beaune par Marechal-Caillot pour dinner ce soir.

croque-monsieur

2011-04-01T07:35:00.001-07:00

Someone talked about croque-monsieur at this blog, so I suddenly craved for it. I made it with bread, bacon, stupid cheese, and sauce Mornay with egg yolk. It is basically a French version of ピザ・トースト,but the sauce Mornay with egg yolk is somewhat like custard when it is baked. Of course, milk and egg = custard.

It's a nice snack with sauce Bechamel, which I'm rather confident to make and like. Sauce Bechamel is made from milk and roux (with salt, pepper and nutmeg). It is really a tasty sauce. The nutmeg plays an important role of bringing everything up to a different level. Croque-monsieur will probably be my favorite breakfast.

Off to a sports bar in Hikone.

wedding and mechant loup

2011-03-28T05:15:00.000-07:00

My sister married to my friend last Saturday! The wedding ceremony was wonderful and the luncheon was also fantastic! It was even nicer because the ceremony was ministered by a minister at the church they go to and groom's parents could come to Kyoto all the way from the Philippines.

For the lunch after the wedding, we went to the restaurant run by former bosses of my sister. It's a wonderful modern French restaurant. It is a very unique place with dishes so personal...traditional yet modern...I love their challenge for new classics. The canapé served as amuse bouche...so flavorful! The starter, vegetable terrine, looked beautiful (it even had a sense of Kyoto) and equally had so many flavors and textures. How can vegetables be so delicious? And the wine paired with the dish truly complemented the leeks. The soup was so smooth and the flavor of bottom mushrooms brought the pumpkin potage to another level. That flavor of mushroom, something even like tarragon, was beautiful. The soup was creamy. I wonder how to make potage that fine in texture and yet not watery. It was DELICIOUS. For the fish dish, we had seabream poele with spaghetti of courgette and sauce antiboise. Imagine sea bream with "ratatouille vegetables with finesse". In general, I love fish dishes probably more than I like meat dishes. I like the subtlety of fish. I love fish with great skins. Sea bream is something you can enjoy the skin. Needless to say, the skin was colored evenly. We had canard de Challans for the meat course with its jus, beets puree, roasted onion and kinjisou. It was a simple dish prepared right. That perfect amount of black pepper on the onion was appetizing. I think the dish was composed to bring out the richness of canard de Challans with the technique of roasting. I never thought that the simple roti could be that delicious. It was straightforward, but again with finesse and honest deliciousness!

Flawless cooking, great balance of flavors and textures, finesse that come from the understanding of ingredients and traditional cooking techniques! I have no knowledge of ingredients or techniques, but I can feel it in their dishes. It was more than eating; it was an entertainment around the table.

I love that restaurant!

I went to Brasserie Paul Bocuse la Maison a Nagoya today. I'll write about it next time. Good night.

back to classic: boeuf bourguignon revisited

2011-03-19T03:12:00.001-07:00

Boeuf Bourguignon. It is such a classic dish, but I come back to it from time to time. This time with a new recipe. I decided not to use any stock this time. The result? It was acceptable. I got surprised actually. It is quicker this way, less dishes to do, and less waste, I could cook this in total 2 hours. Here is what I did.

Ingredients:

Boeuf Bourguignon (my latest simplest way)

200g of beef shank,

1/4 onions for stewing,

1/8 tomato (made into tomato puree),

Some carrot, not much, just a little (to complement the onioin)

Thyme, bay leaf, parsley and a clove of garlic,

Burgundian wine,

Water, salt and black pepper.

Butter (for monter au beurre).

2 button mushrooms,

Some bacon, not so much. Pancetta should be better because I do not want smokiness in the sauce.

Instruction:

1) Sear the beef in hot oil. Very hot.

2) Color the mushrooms, vegetables (onions were chopped fine and caramelized) and bacon and sweat the halved garlic clove in the same pan after removing the beef. Add tomato puree and cook for a while.

3) Pour in red wine. Not so much. Reduce by half.

4) Meat back in.

5) Add water so that the meat will be submerged. Not so much because meat will shrink in the cooking process.

6) Add bouquet garni.

7) Bring back to the boil, skim.

8) 140C oven for 100 mins with a tight lid on.

9) Make garnish. I cooked onions and bacon a la creme with parsley and sauteed halved mushrooms.

10) Take the stew out of the oven and rapidly reduce the liquid on a stove. Reserve the meat in a covered dish.

11) When the liquid is reduced down. Pass it through cloth. Back in the pan. Meat and sauteed mushrooms in to reheat them. When it is hot. Remove the meat from the liquid. Whisk in butter. to finish the sauce.

12) Plate: onion and bacon a la creme in the center of a plate. Meat on top. Mushrooms around and sauce over.

Note: You always need to give a good color on the meat in general, but for this dish, it is absolutely crucial. Give nice color on the meat and vegetables before adding liquids and stew them. Give really really good color on them. Since you should not cook the meat through, you only need to sear them, you have to make the pan smoking hot. (At least, I need to.)

I used light Burgundy today, but it worked alright. I always used darker colored wine, but maybe it doesn't really matter so much.

red wine from Meursault

2011-03-19T01:07:00.000-07:00

So I bought this RED wine from Meursault just because I always associated Meursault with white wine.

The result: Pas mal... Let's just say that this one is nice for a sunny summer day and right now while I'm stewing meat in the oven.

apple tart, glace au caramel, star anise-infused syrup

2011-03-16T05:24:00.000-07:00

Apple tart and glace au caramel with star anise-infused syrup. This is more or less like tarte Tatin.

If you know how to make puff pastry, it is an easy dessert.

1) Roll out the pastry.

2) Arrange the apples.

3) Glaze it with stock syrup-based thingy...a mixture of stock syrup, cognac, star anise, salt and pepper.

4) Bake in the oven. Glaze the top with that stock syrup based syrup a few times during the baking process.

5) Put it on the plate. Glaze with a little more syrup. Quenelles of caramel ice cream on top. Apple skin poached in syrup and anise to garnish. That's it.

Apple skins seem to absorb the flavor of anise very well.

I still need to work on this dessert. Glace au caramel itself was delicious, but the flavor of caramel overwhelmed the dessert. Maybe I should caramelize the apple with blowtorch and give other flavors with ice cream.

fillet of beef, pomme puree, wilted spinach and sauce chasseur

2011-03-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

My latest dish. Again classical.

chicken ravioli, sauce chasseur

2011-02-20T11:09:00.000-08:00

I have made pasta many times. I have made moussline many times. I have recently learned how to make an acceptable sauce chasseur. So I combined them.

Here it is: chicken ravioli with sauce chasseur.

The filling is based on chicken mousseline. I quickly sauteed chopped onions and shimeji mushrooms and combined them with the mousseline.

It will be my regular repatoire.

Making of the pasta

Finished dish

It looks like this when you cut it.

fillet of beef with fondant potato, sauce chasseur

2011-02-16T04:15:00.000-08:00

I cooked and ate this for dinner today. I made sauce chasseur with beef stock, sauce tomate which was prepared with chicken stock, and white wine. The proportion was roughly 1.3:1:0.7. But my sauce tomate was thin and the beef stock was also on the thin side.... The beauty of this sauce is that it is not too thick and the fillet of beef can accommodate it. For example, the super classic demi-glace is too thick for a beef fillet. Of course, demi-glace is not something to be eaten as it is. It's too plain. Suace chasseur, on the other hand, classically made from demi-glace and sauce tomate, it much lighter. The addition of tomatoes and white wine gives nice acidity. And finely chopped parsley and tarragon added to finish the sauce brings everything to another level. It gives another dimension. It fills the gap between the richness of beef stock and the acidity from tomatoes and wine. It's a wonderful sauce. The tiny bit of butter whisked in to finish the sauce gives a nice velvety texture and makes the sauce milder. Everyone talks about improving texture and color by adding a small knob of butter; that is true. But it is not only about the texture, by giving a nice texture, it, taste-wise, makes the sauce milder. It's interesting because we tend to think that butter=fat makes it heavier.

I needed more caramelization on the meat...

venison with red wine sauce

2011-02-02T21:13:00.001-08:00

A friend of my uncle shot a deer, and I got some meat.

Whenever I make this kind of dish--I mean, a simple dish with protein, simple garnish and a sauce--I feel the shortness of life.

The meat and garnish were cooked in literally 10mins, but it took at least 4 hours to make this sauce, starting with roasting a chicken. How life of ingredients peaks dramatically, and the peak/sauce can exists only for 15 minutes on a table.

Life is short.

filets de sole au vin blanc

2011-01-21T06:02:00.000-08:00

A classic dish, filets of sole in white wine. The meat was eaten; the bones were made into a sauce. Literally, there was nothing to waste! It's a wonderful fish. The sole I used was not anything fancy like dover sole. It was cheap at a nearby store even though it was beautiful and fresh. I was happy that I could construct this dish less than 250yen (=3USD). Since the garnish is easy and can be made alongside the fish, I can easily serve this when someone comes over. It was delicious by the way.

ishimochi and paprika en papillote

2011-01-18T11:11:00.000-08:00

There is a local store where I can get hold of nice fish. Today, I bought ishimochi--it is white fish I do not know what it's called in English--trimmed it and made two dishes. The first dish was a simple poele. I learned that this fish contains sort of a lot of water. So for the second dish, which is shown in the photo, I coated it with salt and soaked up the water. Cooked it en papillote with paprika, celery, onions basil and a pinch of saffron. I used equal portions of lemon juice and white wine plus some olive oil and salt and pepper for a steaming liquid.

It turned out to be rather delicious. Maybe next time, I will use meatier fish like, dorade or bream.

monkfish liver for a starter

2011-01-07T23:26:00.000-08:00

Anglerfish liver can be steamed or made into terrine. Today I simply poeled it. The dish in the first photo was made because I needed to know what this liver tastes like when sauteed. I simply poeled it in butter, and ate it with wilted spinach with a hint of soy sauce. The liver is glazed with lemon, of course. Some acidity should be required for such a rich ingredient. The thing I learned was that this liver gets a really nice smell and flavor when sauteed. Good enough to accommodate lots of other ingredients. Searching for the right pair, that is the challenge. It will take time.

The next dish is my first attempt to construct something exciting with the liver of anglerfish. I used cherry tomatoes, black olives, basil, thyme and lemon. It is a fresh sauce. The tomatoes are cooked literally only for 2-3 minutes. Tomatoes are in season during summer and they remind me of summer, so does basil. This discrepancy annoys me. It just doesn't sound right. Why should I eat something like this in winter? Anyways, it tasted alright, not surprising or anything. It definitely needed something more. On the other hand, since I'm trying to make a starter, it doesn't need to be overly complicated. It took about 10 minutes to put together, which is always nice. But something is missing.

My anglerfish experiment continues...

post-christmas and pre-new year's day

2010-12-26T08:09:00.000-08:00

How was your Christmas? I hope you all had a great one. Mine was socially rather boring but religiously nice. Easter and Pentecost are equally important, but Christmas has its own place as an outstanding feast day, doesn't it? At least for me, it is. I first realized that I should be catholic, or I should learn about catholicism during a midnight mass. Also, the celebration of birth seems appealing to me. The word, baby, sounds so innocent, cherished and needs protection. (Of course, we have to keep in mind that the lord stayed innocent throughout his life.) It was/is the beginning of new life. How wonderful it is!

My sister is coming home around the new year's day. I'm already thinking of what to cook. I got a blender today. Yes, I did not have a blender. I was always doing everything in an archaic way. With a blender, since it is like a commis in the kitchen, I hope that I would be able to cook more elaborate dishes at home. I first thought of making osechi, a traditional Japanese new year cuisine, but I decided against that. I'm simply not familiar with basic techniques.... (I should study that; I know!) Anyways, my mother will probably make something. There will be all Japanese food for a week. It is nice and delicious, but I want to make something for my sister, so I will probably make a rather involved French before January 1. In Japan, you cannot cook, you cannot use your kitchen for a few days starting from January 1 to let the kitchen rest. It is an unusually strictly kept tradition, but I suspect it is really just an excuse for wives (not kitchens!) to take a rest.

What kind of dinner should I cook? Since my sister said that she wanted a steak, a chunk of meat, I should think in that line. Yeah, she lives in a room with a very poorly equipped kitchen...where she cannot make a proper steak.... It is a standard student apartment in Japan. I personally believe it should be better for many reasons. I will talk about that some day, about the situation of students' dorms and apartments in Japan. Right now, I have in mind:

Amuse bouche: seafood like oysters, crabs, scallops, goosefish liver, or cod milt...

Entree: mille-feuille of some form of protein. Something with liver and sauce with acidity. (I probably cannot find a nice liver like veal sweetbread, so I will probably not going to do this...This is just my wish.) I may make terrine... With what??? Maybe I can use goosefish liver to make a terrine. But then, I need to practice a lot beforehand...I should stick to something I know how to cook. What about seafood carpaccio with piping hot consommé at the table? So it will be like an instant nabe. You know, buri-syabu, it is slightly cooked sashimi of buri. The idea is from here. That is delicious. Slightly cooked carpaccio at the table. Imagine!

Fish: I may skip it...it depends...I may make poele of something or poele with potato scales. hmmm.

Meat: This should be the star of the evening. Either my specialite or that particular dish I like.

Dessert: I will ask my sister for what she wants. I hope that she wouldn't ask for something technical like souffle...I want it to be something I can make in advance...

What kind of wine should I buy? Now I have only two bottles in stock because I'm drinking Pommard right now.... Maybe fruity pinot noir...maybe bottle shop's recommendation. I wish I knew more about wine... If I make fish dishes, I need to buy white wine too... Not such a good idea. I have a budget to keep.

I can always go for beer, but it is not that appealing, is it? I love beer. I can think of quite a few beers. But the people who know only mass produced beer tend to gulp it down even if it is a very high quality Belgian beer of high alcoholic content.... "It is not smooth, it is like ji-biiru" they say... So beer, out of the question... In any case, I don't like having beer during meal without chips..

satisfaction

2010-11-27T07:38:00.000-08:00

Satisfaction. It is individual. It depends on you.

You are satisfied with dinner, night out at a bar for 10,000 yen. You feel you want to go there again. It happens to you from time to time, doesn't it?

My translation should be like that....

Pommard (Marechal-Caillot 2006)

2010-11-24T05:32:00.000-08:00

I do not know much about wine, so I cannot compare this wine with other wines from Pommard. However, this one by Marechal-Caillot is good enough to please my palate! I can think of many dishes I want to eat with this: something with caramelized onions and (no so heavy) lever.

I like this wine; yes, I like this.

I also liked Savigny-les-Beaune 2006 by M.-Caillot. Their Ladoix was also alright although I thought that should be drunk with roasted dishes if I remember it correctly. Their Prestige d'un Terroir 2007 was a bit disappointing to me, though. Just a bit. It was a little too tannic and--sorry to say this--a bit watery. I do not know much about wine, so please do not believe what I say. More knowledgeable people would probably say otherwise.

Anyways, I'm enjoying this Pommard right now. Enjoying every glass of it, after all, that is the most important thing, isn't it?

I'm thinking of buying another bottle for Christmas.

I wanna go to the restaurant, Mechant Loup (mechantloup.com), in Kyoto. I think I will. Who wants to join me? I rather want to go there for dinner. I can go have French for lunch by myself, but for dinner, I want a company coz it typically takes more than two hours to eat through a course. How I wish I could eat shrimps and stuff. I may be allergic to them. It is weird that I like crabs.... I made sauce Americaine with shrimps the other day, and I had an itchy throat when I finished making it. You see, you need to taste a lot of times while cooking. I might be possible that I can eat lobsters. Hmmm...... I used to like shrimps, crayfish, lobsters, etc. What happened to me? I vividly remember the first time when I ate a crayfish. I was about 7 years old and it was at a French restaurant in "kura" of a former bank...I think I was brought there twice. I remember their bright white tablecloth, white plates, crayfish, and black walls.

demi-glace

2010-11-23T05:16:00.001-08:00

I've finally found a formula to make demi-glace at home. Demi-glace has been one of the five mother sauces which I couldn't reasonably make at home although it is such an important sauce in the classic French cooking.

I was always using a beef stock, which I could make myself, instead of demi-glace. This is not a big problem as long as home-cooking is concerned. Besides, a beef stock or fond de veau seems more popular in the modern French.

The good thing about demi-glace is that you can preserve it longer than beef stock. It occupies much less space than a beef stock in your fridge.

Why I couldn't make this sauce before? I think it's because of the poor quality of my beef stock in the past. It was not that bad, but was not good enough! I also made a mistake about the amount of vegetables and the way I sauteed them prior to adding water to make a stock or sauce.

One more thing. I began to be more careful to finish the sauce in general. If I need to add lemon juice at the end to taste, I currently add it drop by drop and taste after each drop. This way, you can see how the flavors change. They go up and them down. So you will know when to stop!

chicken and fricassee of mushrooms with a tomato sauce

2010-11-16T06:39:00.001-08:00

I had tomatoes and beans that I needed to use in the fridge, so I made this.

I did not even have a stock today, so I started out by making a stock. Then, sauce tomate. By the time I plated, I was rather tired and feeling lazy, so I just threw out chicken, mushrooms, etc on the plate. I was telling myself to "keep it rustic".

It doesn't look pretty, but I liked the flavor.

possible enlightenment

2010-11-12T09:46:00.000-08:00

I had beef sirloin with pan-fried potatoes in escargot butter for lunch today. This itself is basically steak frites. Nothing unusual, but delicious.

Now, lying in bed, drowsing off, an idea for a new dish came to me. It is closely based on what I had for lunch today. I kinda feel that this time it will finally work. It is not pretentious. I already have 3 different candidates. I've gotta experiment each of them.

I'll tell you if it works.

sometimes I want to...

2010-11-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

ANONYMITY

I first had a reason to keep a blog with my real name.

I sometimes want to start a new blog anonymously.

Today's dinner

2010-10-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

Today's dinner.

Oysters.

A fillet of beef.

And the dessert creme brulee with a deserted table.

I had muscadet S&M sur lie and Savigny-les-Beaune by Marechal Caillot. Savigny was ohhhh nice. :)

I will keep working on my Christmas menu.

Good night!

saturday dinner plan

2010-10-21T07:03:00.000-07:00

Starter: Tagliatelle of oysters and caviar

Main dish: Fillet of beef with gremolata

Dessert: Creme brulee

This is what I have in mind right now. I may change it. I may also serve a fish dish (I love seafood!). I might make a soup too. I wanna cook something more exciting for dessert too. It depends. Let's see.

Unfortunately, I do not have any cheese...but I have wine.

Anyone is welcome. I cannot cook for many people, though. Two people maximum. I do not have enough stock to cook with for more than two.

glazed fillet of beef with gremolata

2010-10-11T03:21:00.001-07:00

I had a fillet of beef.

I had a beef stock.

I had a lemon and capers.

I have thyme and parsley in the garden.

It is Gordon Ramsay's idea.

It took only 10 minutes or so to cook this dish.

The gremolata brought the fillet to another level, I say!

sunday breakfast

2010-10-02T22:19:00.000-07:00

Egg Benedict.

i cooked again.

2010-10-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

I made three dishes for dinner today. Sauteed scallops with blah blah, Vichyssoise, and fillet of beef.

a sauteed scallop with saffron risotto

2010-09-12T04:19:00.000-07:00

I had scallops, so I ate it with risotto. The presentation was cheap and embarrassing. At first I thought of putting everything back in a shall was a pretty idea, but it turned out clumsy.... It is not easy to eat from the shell. I will never do this again. Scallops aren't oysters...

basic stock, not just about coooking

2010-09-09T10:03:00.000-07:00

I have one chicken carcass and a little beef stock in my fridge now. What shall I make with them?

I really want to make something with salmon these days. I love salmon because you can enjoy it in many ways: confit, en croute, poele, smoked.. I really need to learn how to smoke. I haven't done that myself yet.

I want to cook crustacean.... Since I cannot eat shrimp, I can only cook crabs which I really like. It is a serious limitation to me and, believe me, I hate it. I want to eat shrimps, lobsters, and whatever with 6 legs and a pair of craws.

I have one proposal. Please oust bouillon cubes. Consomme cubes too. Consomme cubes do no good to food culture in Japan. When people hear consomme, they think of that hideous cube. Consomme is a soup I really like and cannot pull off. It looks so simple and innocuous, but really difficult to make.... Much more difficult than omelet. Omelet is all about technique, but consomme is about the balance of flavors.

Recently, I strongly think that I need to observe the basic techniques. You cannot play with them. You cannot just twist and try to "adopt" something to whatever you want. You need to think in terms of the ingredients and concepts of the dish you make. No shortcut, no laziness, no trick. A dish should be simple and exciting.

I ordered Escoffier's book at Amazon. I'm looking forward to reading this classic book. I hope I'm prepared enough to read it.

one restaurant in Tokyo

2010-09-03T08:33:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, I had serious lunch which took me more than an hour and half to finish at Ambiance in Nakameguro, Tokyo. I had white chicken liver (fatty liver) pate with confit of fig for the starter. When the dish arrived, I knew that I had come to a serious restaurant. Next, I had onion potage. The menu only said potage. I asked the maitre d what the potage was made from. He said it was onion potage, hot or cold. I asked for the cold one. When he brought me the potage, it was NOT just ordinary potage! It was fantastic; rich onion potage with gelee of consomme with sweet croûton which enriched the sweetness of onion. By that time, I was purely enjoying and excited with the lunch full of surprises. For the main course, I ordered Japanese seabass which was instantly smoked (maybe for a minute or two; that is what instant smoke means, right?) and then sauteed (poeler) with lentils and sherry vinaigrette. The fillet of fish was very thick and meaty. I really wanted to know how to make that particular vinaigrette. It was not the ordinary 1:3 vinegar:oil-vinaigrette. Dessert...great dessert. There were five choices. They said that the owner/chef had worked in Belgium for 7 years. I went for their chocolate dessert. It was delicious! Basically, it was a combination of three flavors: white chocolate, litchi and yogurt. As all the other dishes, it had a fantastic harmony of textures.

I had a glass of Bourgogne rouge 2007 by Henri Clerc. I really think that eating out is an experience. It is not just food. Food is the main actor. Dining should be a play we participate in. :)

The lunch was SKILLFULLY cooked. Lots of technique and time were spent, I'm sure. I really liked the humble way of writing the menu, hence lots of surprises when the artistic dishes arrived.

I went back to the restaurant again at night. Just to have some drink (they have that space too) and chat about lunch I liked so much with maitre d and (sous) chef (?). I could have a couple of Belgian beer I hadn't had before and strengthen my faith in red ale.

poulet au vin rouge (?)

2010-08-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

My latest experiment.

I still haven't decided what to call this. It is a sort of variation of coq au vin.

sopa de ajo

2010-08-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

Sopa de ajo, my recent favorite midnight snack, not too heavy, not too light. It takes only 15 to 20 minutes to cook in its easiest form. Why make a fuss if you see it as a snack? No skimming, no passing through a chinois.

Here is a recipe. Call me heretic, say it is not sopa de ajo in its original form. I don't care.

Ingredients for 4

3 cloves of garlic, 3/4 finely chopped, 1/4 thinly sliced

1/4 onion, sliced

bread (half a slice of toast)

paprika powder (1 tbsp)

1 stock cube

700ml of water

1 whole egg

parsley and salt and pepper.

Instruction

1. Fry chopped and sliced garlic in olive oil. Nice color.

2. Add onion and sweat it. Salt and pepper.

3. Add paprika powder and fry to extract flavors. (Garlic get scorched easily, so be careful.)

4. Add water and bouillon cube.

5. Cook for a while. For 5 mins?

6. Add toasted bread (cut into about 2cm-cubes) and chopped parsley.

7. Adjust the seasoning.

8. Once the bread gets soft, whisk the mixture with a balloon whisk.

9. Add lightly whisked egg over the soup. Cook it.

That's it.

They traditionally seem to use baguette. But you don't usually have a loaf of baguette in a Japanese house. Toast is fine if you are just making a snack.

duex types de fonds/two types of stock

2010-08-22T06:42:00.000-07:00

I usually make stock. Today, I made two types of chicken stock with the same ingredients although I added cloves to the white stock. It was my first time to compare the two side by side. It is amazing how different their flavors are with the same note of chicken. Brown stock, in general, has one extra step in preparation: browing the ingredients before adding water. If you are making a large amount of stock, I recommend you to use an oven. If you are making just a little bit, I recommend you to brown carcasses and vegetables on the stove.

I am going to make some dish with different combinations of the two. I cannot wait to compare the results!

It is summer, so be careful with food poisoning especially through your cutting board and towels.

Speaking of food safety, there was an outbreak of mad cow disease a few years ago, and the university cafeterias decided to serve their stakes well-done. That was heretic. The mad cow disease has nothing to do with the meat; definitely safe INSIDE the cuts of meat. Not that their steaks were good even before then, though.... Please do not turn the meat so MANY MANY times!!! Yes, do not play with your food!

mushroom consomme

2010-08-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

This mushroom consomme is made from basically the same ingredients for poulet au chausseur. The marriage of mushroom with tarragon is one of my favorite combinations.

Consomme is all about flavors. This is one of the most humble looking dish with so many ingredients. Its preparation is simple, but it is difficult to balance the flavors. I used too much onion this time.

The picture below shows the clarification process with egg white.

Crabe a l'Americaine

2010-08-02T05:42:00.000-07:00

I abused my arms, having made phyllo pastry and crashed crab shells.

Only when you have time...

boeuf au vin rouge

2010-07-29T03:08:00.000-07:00

My latest experiment.

Beef braised in red wine and fond de veau with poached vegetables in different liquids.

coq au vin, revisited

2010-07-04T09:37:00.000-07:00

I made coq au vin again. This time I used drumsticks.

My coq au vin is definitely not the traditional coq au vin. Aside from using poulet instead of coq, I prepared the sauce even before I put the chicken in. The reason is, unlike boeuf Bourguignon, chicken takes much less time to cook and it is difficult to extract flavors from the chicken in a short time. I prepared sauce Espagnole with a chicken carcase first, and then brown some chicken parts (the parts you get when you manchonne drumsticks) and mirepoix in a pan. Then added red wine, reduce, added sauce Espagnole. When it is done, this liquid for braising already tastes nice full of the flavors from the chicken carcase. I braised chicken in this liquid for 15-20 minutes, just enough to cook through it. Although I braised chicken for 15 mins, I took hours to prepare the liquid. I wanted to get rid of the harshness of red wine. Absolutely important.

As for garnish, I followed the traditional Burgundian one, i.e. onions, mushrooms and bacon. Pearl onions were braised in water, sugar, and lemon juice. Chopped onions, button mushrooms and bacon were sautéed in butter, and then I added some cream. (The idea for garnish was taken from the website of the Tsuji Culinary Institute. I'm not stealing, here is a credit!) The sauce of coq au vin goes well with cream, so it is a good idea. You do not want to disturb the chicken flavor of the sauce with cream, so you prepare them separately. I liked that.

One thing. The quality of bacon/pancetta seems rather important. If you use a stupid one, it destroys the overall flavor. It doesn't need to be expensive. Find something that goes well with your dish. Garnish should compliment the main dish. Just complement. It should not come forward.

Also, I recently noticed the importance of peppers. Black, white, green peppers out there. We've gotta give more attention to which one to use. Yeah, this should tell you how I'm "un"experienced in cooking.

the world cup and after

2010-07-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

The world cup is partially over because the Japanese team lost Paraguay. My temporary days as a soccer fan is also over although there will be great games coming in the final tournament. I'll support Germany from now on. I really liked how they played against England. I was very disappointed with the referee about England's "second" goal, though. It probably have changed how England played in the second half. Maybe I should watch J-League and premier league from time to time.

Here is a new recipe for canapé.

Cream cheese, Danish blue cheese, (black pepper,) and a small touch of Balsamic vinegar. Little bit of salt if needed. Drizzle the canapé with olive oil.

I came up with this combination because I did not have proper blue cheese in the fridge. For me, Danish blue cheese is not smooth enough and it is too sour. Cream cheese makes it creamier and Balsamic vinegar give a nice shiny glaze.

Warning: This recipe is not brilliant at all. Cream cheese, sour cream and truffle oil should be a hundred times better.

rusk

2010-06-06T14:02:00.000-07:00

I do not like rusk too hard. Here is a recipe.

1) Preheat the oven at 190C.

2) In a bowl, mix egg yolk:sugar=1:5 in weight, and add a little bit of vanilla extract and a drizzle of lemon juice.

3) Cut baguette into each portion and spread the mixture on it.

4) Straight to the oven until they are done. Not so long.

Now you do not need to buy stupid factory-made rusks.

Saturday dinner

2010-06-02T07:38:00.001-07:00

I did not attempt to do what I initially thought for Saturday dinner (See the last post) because I also needed to eat while serving dishes.

We had salmon confit with sautéed scallop with salad of mizuna as a starter. (A light flavor of lemon zest, dill and olive oil.)

For the soup, while I thought of making Vichyssoise, but by request, I prepared pumpkin potage.

The main course was steak Diane with Dijon mustard. (I really wanted to do something more summer-like. It was sunny on Saturday.)

We finished with apple tart fine.

As for wine, we had Sileni Sauvignon Blanc 2009, dry and crispy. The idea was that it could go even with the meat because steak Diane is creamy and the crispiness of the wine might cut through the sauce. I could get some red but other dishes called for white, so I was reluctant to buy red only for the main course. After all, steak Diane is steak Diane. It is a quick and simple dish, no fuss at all, and thus it wasn't enough to convince me to spend on another wine.

The course was efficient, time-wise. I could prepared everything except for the steak in advance. Of course, I sautéed the scallops right before serving, but it was the first dish, so there was no wait.

My friend kindly brought us Tawny port and Stone's. Needless to say, the port was enjoyed after dinner.

It was a nice day. It was a pity that we did not have more time.

It is just possible that I will serve some combination/abbreviation of...

2010-05-28T09:19:00.000-07:00

Menu

Samedi 29 Mai 2010

Amuse-bouche

***

Confit de saumon, sauce vinaigrette

Bouchées aux champignons

***

Potage purée de potiron

***

Morue avec des coquilles Saint-Jacques, sauce ratatouille

Saumon en croute

***

Steak Diane à la crème et à la moutarde

Fricassee de volaille à l'ancienne

***

Tarte Fine aux Pommes

***

Café

amazing sailor and attempted math post

2010-05-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

This girl is waaaay tooooooo cool, http://jessicawatson.com.au/index.htm. I want to live up to my life as she does. Hemingway has always been my ideal man, but Jessica Watson is now competing with Papa Hemingway and Einstein.

Now, after a long hiatus of math post, I don't remember when I wrote about math last time. Here is one. (I will continue as long as I'm awake. I'm eager to summarize linear algebra in a few pages.)

OK...LaTex doesn't work on this blog again. Yeah, this is the reason why I haven't posted anything mathematical lately.

Bye for now.

sauteed chicken with ratatouille sauce

2010-05-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

Before I forget how I made this.

Ingredients:

For the sauce: 1) Infuse garlic in olive oil. Sweat onion and red paprika (salt and pepper, thyme). Add white wine and reduce. Add celery and fresh ripe tomatoes, peeled and deseeded. (I used one paprika and three tomatoes.) A ladle of water. Simmer for 20 to 30 mins. (Not too long. Keep it fresh!) Straight to the blender. Then pass it through a fine chinois. Reduce the sauce to the right consistency (quickly!). Season with salt and pepper. Add extra sweet/sour flavor with Balsamic vinegar. A little bit of olive oil. Stir in basil. All the flavors should still be there. Balsamic is only to balance the flavor.

Garnish: Aubergine, yellow paprika, green pepper (courgette is better if you have).

Chicken: Saute with olive oil. salt, pepper and thyme. (I seared the chicken and put it in the oven while making the sauce.)

Arrange them on a plate. Glaze chicken with a little bit of olive oil.

Cafe Creme

2010-04-03T23:13:00.000-07:00

I had this for dessert after lunch today. It took time and care to make this. The idea of this dessert, Cafe Creme, is Raymond Blanc's.

Mine in the photo is like this:

The cup and saucer are chocolate.

The sugar cubed are chocolate truffles coated with sugar.

In the cup, I put slices of banana, then bitter coffee ice cream, and topped it up with sabayon foam with strawberry liqueur.

Ingredients: dark chocolate, cream, sugar, egg yolks, coffee, strawberry liqueur, and banana. That's all.

Bouchees aux Champignons.

2010-04-01T04:45:00.000-07:00

I screwed up the puff pastry. I knew it while rolling it. I knew the temperature went too high.

The picture is the result: Bouchees aux Champignons.

I succeeded with the sauce and mushrooms. A tiny bit of curry powder worked well, I say.

Next time, I shall not make the same mistake!

Scallops

2010-03-28T04:24:00.000-07:00

Today's starter. Pan sauteed scallops.

one minor complaint to a supermarket

2010-03-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

Please do not sell your meat boned or cut into pieces. Please do not sell your fish cut into individual portion.

Maybe it is high time that I found my butcher and fishmonger.

Sometimes, whole daurade (I do not know the English word for it) is sold very cheaply in a nearby market. That is good. And that daurade is usually only just over a foot-long, which is known to have the best flavor. Nice.

I was into cream before. These days, I'm into fish.

Mathematically, I'm about to seriously study the Iwasawa theory.

Quasi Escalope de Saumon a l'Oseille

2010-03-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

This is my latest cooking. I did not have oseille, so I used spinach instead. I suppose I missed one flavor there. Spinach doesn't taste at all when used this way.

I tried not to put too much color on salmon because the color of the sauce is white.

It is a famous dish, so I suppose that you can find recipe everywhere on the net. I followed the one in the green book pubslidhed by the Tsuji Culinary School.

st. Patrick's day sangria (sangria?)

2010-03-17T11:46:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Did you have pints of Guinness and soda bread with Irish or Guinness stew? (Maybe I'm going to make soda bread tomorrow if I have time.)

There was a celebration at the pub, which unfortunately I couldn't go. Instead, I went to bed early with a sore throat. I woke up early in the morning, almost midnight, with an even sorer throat. And now, I'm having sangria I made yesterday and rested in the fridge. ********* liqueur and a herb I added is doing a good job. They are secret ingredients; thus stars. It may not be a liqueur you find in an ordinary house.

The beauty of sangria is to transform the cheapest wine into something drinkable and original. I shall make a lot of them in summer! I used the stupid wine I usually exclusively use for cooking.

But I really wanted to have pint after pint of Guinness tonight!

I go to bed and sleep for a few hours for the morning!

to be yourself (math and cooking)

2010-03-02T08:16:00.000-08:00

What will happen if you try to cook a dish far out of your skill?

You will screw it up. You would get something ridiculous you don't want to eat. With the same ingredients, you could have cooked something better with your skill. You would say to yourself, "Why did I try to cook like that dish I ate at that restaurant?" Don't do it. Don't try to cook like an experienced professional chef. Stick to what you can, and slowly move on. Learn basic techniques first. Perfect your stock!

Same thing in mathematics. Don't try to be a star, like Artin, Tate, Serre, Grothendieck. Stick to what you can and what you think is interesting, i.e. important. It really makes you feel stupid if you try to do something you cannot do and fail. With your knowledge, with what you are capable of, your ingredients and technique, try to cook the best mathematics you can with imagination.

It is more fun and enjoyable this way. When you cook what you can cook, you know what you are doing. You taste, taste, and taste. You know if you are on the right track and successfully building up the flavors or you have messed up something.

I'll stick to mathematics I can do present. Nothing more or nothing less than that. I'm not compromising. It is the way I can enjoy it thoroughly. Don't try to be someone else you are not.

something new

2010-02-05T08:13:00.000-08:00

Today, I decided to learn a new language. Let's see how it will go.

I'm always worried if my brain power is in decline. Both reasoning and memory.

It may be, but what is waiting there if my innately pitiful brain gets even duller.

I keep hoping that my brain will get better some day.

Wish me luck.

Cocktail TLK1

2010-02-01T08:37:00.000-08:00

Latest recipe.

2 oz Apricot brandy
1/4 orange squeezed with skin
3/4 oz lemon juice

Shake the ingredients.

Add a little bit of soda.

Am I right-handed or not?

2010-01-08T10:26:00.000-08:00

Am I right-handed or not?

I write with my right hand. I eat with my right hand, i.e. I hold my chopsticks with my right hand. I don't eat with my hands.

I pour liquor from a bottle with my left hand.

I hold a shaker (when I make a cocktail) in a left-handed way, i.e. I hold the cap with my left hand and the body with my right hand.

I hold my cigarette with my left hand, most of the time.

I always hold my cell phone with my left hand, but text with my right hand.

I hold a glass with my right hand.

I hold a book with my left hand.

My eye is lefty.

My leg is inclined to be lefty.

It is probably not if you are right-handed or left-handed. It is how right/left-handed you are. I say, "I'm 70% right-handed."

new year's resolution

2010-01-07T11:15:00.000-08:00

What's your new year's resolution?

I never make them because I can never keep them.

This year:

1) I'll do much more mathematics,

2) I'll start to learn a new language,

3) I'll do some exercise,

4) I'll stop to be self-centered,

5) I'll spend more time on writing.

The third one is probably difficult at least in winter.

I kinda want to do kendo, Japanese fencing, again. I always wanted to do it again. I still remember how I started it long time ago. They were wonderful years. Believe it or not, kendo meant a lot to me.

The art of losing isn't hard to master...

2009-12-29T12:05:00.000-08:00

I often hear people say, "Do you remember blah blah blah when we went somewhere?" or something like that. Do they really remember it as if they could see it in front of their eyes or is it just an expression?

I don't seem to be able to recall things happened more than two years ago. It was like that even when I was in junior high school and in high school. In college, I said to myself, "It is too sad to forget happy moments." So I always tried to keep things in mind, but it turned out that I could keep them only for two years or so.

What do I remember now? Almost nothing. Of course, I do know what I did, but it is always as if I saw paintings of myself doing something. Almost surreal paintings. Memory is a nasty thing. I always feel I have lived only for a few years in this world. Sometimes. I suddenly remember something, usually stimulated by a certain smell or climate, like the first breeze of winter...It is only temporary.

Am I weird or not?

Or I just don't have a long-term memory. I always feel this when I do mathematics, but it is probably because I did not understand concepts well. In this case, I can just look up books and re-study them.

However happy I was, I tend to forget after years. If I was sad, it lingers on, but I eventually forget it.

There is a short poem by Elizabeth Bishop entitled as ONE ART. I've just reread it. It is almost comical at the first reading, but if you think of losing as forgetting, it is a sad poem with deeper implications. I cannot transcribe it all here due to the copyright issue. But it goes like this:

ONE ART

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

etc. etc...

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

--Elizabeth Bishop

Although I want to elaborate on this poem, it is no use for I cannot transcribe it all here.

Good night!

THE PRIME NUMBER THEOREM FOR PRIMES IN ARITHMETIC PROGRESSIONS

2009-12-09T02:58:00.000-08:00

Here is my note, the prime number theorem for primes in arithmetic progressions.

The Prime Number Theorem for Primes in Arithmetic Progressions

scribd

2009-12-09T00:31:00.000-08:00

Fuck that scribd thing. I cannot upload my math note.
I wasted my 30 minutes trying to upload it.

Anchor Christmas Ale and Guldenberg

2009-12-01T00:02:00.000-08:00

I got two kinds of new beer today.

When I bought Anchor Christmas ale, I was told that I was probably the first person to drink it in Shiga because they themselves received it right before I visited the store.

Since I'm too tired and smoked cigarettes, I'll drink it late tonight or tomorrow so that I can fully enjoy the flavor.

For a record

2009-11-20T20:13:00.000-08:00

La Trappe (White)
Port Ellen (BBR, cask strength, 1982 bottled in 2007)

Two drinks I tried for the first time last night.

Daiquiri

2009-11-19T09:50:00.000-08:00

My last post was...well...about rustic snacks.

Today's post is about...well...a cocktail. It's origin is rustic, but it transcended to something more.

As you know I love beer and whisky. Recently I like wine too. More recently, I discovered some of the cocktails are nice too. Of course, if they are not nice, they are not widely known as they are.

Among cocktails so far, I especially found Daiquiri really fantastic. Though I do not know how the bartender made it when I first drank it, when I make it myself at home, I use rum:lemon (not lime) juice=3:1 with a little syrup. These simple ingredients make a yogurt-like flavor. I love this drink. It'll probably going to be my Christmas drink this year. I'm already thinking of my Christmas dinner.

Thanks to my dad who always keeps 20-30 kinds of liqueur and two different-sized shakers.

Two Snacks: Balut and Sardines in Oil with Mashed Potato

2009-11-17T10:20:00.000-08:00

Balut: It is a boiled fertilized chicken egg. Filipino people seem to like it. I've been trying to taste it for a long time and last Saturday for the first time in my life I had it! Fr. Elmer had it and let me have one of them. I read about how to eat it in a book before. You crack one side of an egg. Then you drink the juice from the hole. After that you make the initial hole on the egg bigger and bigger and eat the chicken inside. I tried a balut of 21-day-old chick, which means the chick already fills the egg, but it doesn't have nails and stuff yet, so it is tender. So I made a hole on the egg. Gross. What the hell is this...? Give me a break. I was grossed out. I was pretty drunk by that time of night, but how can I possibly eat that greenish gray unborn chick...boiled? Anyways, I drank up the juice as if I were taking a tequila shot. It tasted somewhat like a chicken stock. Then I realized that what I was about to eat was just a chicken, a whole chicken. Just unborn, but it is still a chicken. I ate it with ponzu. In fact, I enjoyed it. I did a little anatomical studies on the chick and I ate it. It was good actually. We just need to improve the presentation. God knows how to make that look nice, though. When you eat balut for the first time, tell yourself that you are just eating chicken.

Sardines in oil with mashed potato: I boiled potatoes, unpeeled. Mashed them, added butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. Opened a can of sardines in oil (I confess that I didn't make sardines in oil.) and put it on the mashed potato. A little chili on top with a little olive oil. In a preheated 200-degree oven for 20 minutes (?) or so. It makes a rather nice snack for a drink or two. I did not boil the potatoes too long. After mashing them it still had some lumps. I just didn't want to make even textured mashed potato. I didn't peel the potatoes. After all, if you are not after the texture, why do you need to remove the skins? That is the flavorful part.

My latest Guinness stew

2009-11-12T10:02:00.000-08:00

The picture is my latest "interpretation" of Guinness stew.

I wanted to make this rustic dish a bit posh. :p

I guess I can call this Guinness carbonade. I tend to use beurre monte instead of beurre manie or roux these days.

I think I could make a nice color. The taste was also alright. Dense enough.

But I cannot see potential in this dish, Guinness stew. Whenever I make Bouef Bourguignon or Coq au vin, I can see what I need to improve. The dishes you can never fail with are probably not interesting dishes. The dishes you always somehow fail have potential, room for improvement. I can of course, use different beers. Fortunately, I have drunk many different kinds of beer, so I'll experiment with whatever I think is appropriate.

Still, Guinness stew is a nice comfort food of all time.

Guide Interpreter Cerification Exam

2009-11-10T07:41:00.000-08:00

I will know if I passed the written exam or not on the 13th. I don't think I passed it especially because I prepared for it only for 5 minutes, 10 minutes maximum.

If I pass, I'll have an interview on the 29th. No need to mention this. No need. (Because I won't make it.)

If I pass this, I will be able to work to show tourists around Japan, which is a good thing because I'll be able to go to different places and eat and drink different things. :)

I really think I should start to learn about Japanese sake. However, for that, I know I need to invest a lot. It is always the case. If you want to learn about one category of liquor, you need to spend a considerable amount on it. It is a lot of fun, though!

Chicken stock for coq au vin

2009-11-04T07:25:00.000-08:00

I made chicken stock this evening. Armed with this fresh chicken stock, I'll make coq au vin again for the youth group meeting on this Saturday. I hope it will turn out alright because my coq au vin is still on its experimental stage. This time, I'll use an oven instead of a stove. Simmering gently may make a difference.

I got chicken legs today, the most flavorful part of chicken, right? With the bones, I expect deeper flavor.

My question is how can one give nicer color to the sauce. I usually simmer for two hours or so, and then I strain the sauce and reduce it, etc. It is still purplish. When I use beef, i.e. boeuf Bourguignon, the color gets more like brown and nice. I want that color to coq au vin too. Will using an oven helps? Maybe I should take more time to simmer it? But chicken will be cooked in one hour, right? If I put tomatoes, fond de veax or demi-glace, the color will probably be better, but what about the taste? The taste is acceptable by my standard already as long as I do not use non-stick pan. I just want to improve the color. Difficult....

Wish me luck!

Boeuf Bourguignon Recipe

2009-10-12T05:57:00.000-07:00

You need:

beer, onion, carrot, garlic, salt, pepper, mushroom, bacon, butter, flour, stock, and red wine (pinot noir or something similar, not too tannic, not too sour, not too bitter).

1) Lightly brown onion and carrot. Remove them from the pan.
2) In the same pan, sear the beef.
3) In a deep pan, make roux with butter and flour.
4) Add some wine and allow it to reduce.
5) Deglaze the pan you sauteed vegetables and meat with some wine. Mix the liquid in.
6) Put the sauteed vegetables and seared meat in.
7) Add some stock, thyme and a bay leaf.
8) Simmer for 2-3 hours at least. (The lid on.)
9) Remove the meat. Strain the sauce. Say bye to the vegetables.
10) In a frying pan, saute mushroom, onion (pearl onions if you have them), pancetta/bacon. While doing so, reduce the sauce.
11) Add these in the sauce with meat.
12) when it's ready, whisk in some butter for shiny look and texture.

The ratio of wine to stock was, in my attempt, roughly 2:1. Using, in addition, parsley and celery should make it better.

My Recent Attempt to Make a Pizza

2009-10-09T14:14:00.000-07:00

Ah! It's difficult. It is difficult to bake the crust and melt cheese at the same time! My stupid oven seems to melt cheese before the crust is baked. If I wait till the crust to be ready, the cheese gets scorched. The first photo is a good example. Look at the rim of the the pizza. It is damn white. I love cherry tomatoes, by the way.

The pizza in the second photo is my latest attempt. It looks alright, doesn't it? I changed the proportion of flour, temperature of the oven, the thickness of the crust.

Don't you wanna have a pizza party? With beer as usual?

Lunch at SaKaMi--Long Live Sakami!

2009-10-01T11:24:00.000-07:00

I had lunch at Sakami (See "Links") with two of my priest friends on Sunday.

Amuse-Bouche: Jamon Iberico with Balsamic Vinegar
Entree: Confit de Saumon with bonito-based soup with a hint of thyme? (Sorry, Chef, if I'm wrong.)
Soupe: Soupe de Potiron
Plat Principal: Confit de Canard Challandais (avec Saint Cosme)
Dessert: Difficult to explain...but with a taste of bananas and, although I don' remember, mint? Something refreshing
And Coffee.

Confit de Saumon is my favorite there. I think that is one of the signature dishes of the chef. He uses a particular oil to make confit and, I think, he smokes it. Escalope was also nice. And kumoko, I don't know what they are called in English.

Pumpkin soup was DELICIOUS. My sister told me that they used onion too. It had a wonderful texture that coats your tongue. Mouthful of flavors. It was served at just the right temperature.

Confit de Canard...so tender and rich in flavor. It was a leg. The skin at the end of the leg was cut off and made a nice presentation. It was really nice. As I love the bloody part (that gray-colored part of meat), it was great because there were lots of gray parts. But my memory is fuzzy with all the absinthe and stuff. I can assure you that it is spoon tender.

Dessert was refreshing. Why did they use bananas? Is it because I went there with two Filipinos? Well, it was very appropriate, wasn't it?

Although I ENJOYED lunch there, why do I feel I enjoyed dinner even more? Because of the ambiance? Especially, I reckon I enjoyed their confit de saumon better at night. Ah, maybe my body wanted salmon for dinner. (Salmon is my favorite fish. It is oily and rich in flavor and very eater-friendly!)

Thanks you, Chef and others!!!

Tomorrow I'll ask B'z and a few other people if they want to go there for lunch this Sunday.

New Links

2009-09-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

I added two links. One is the official website of the restaurant my sister works for; the other is their blog.

I LOVE their food (The photo is my cooking; see the next paragraph.) even though I have been there only once. I don't know about food much, but I found everything cooked perfectly. Of course, no under-cooking nor over-cooking, spot-on seasoning. Nice atmosphere of the restaurant. I may go there this weekend, i.e. tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. I think I'll go to Le Bouchon for tomorrow lunch because it is close to the cathedral where I partake Mass and Maitre d' is a nice person. Actually, I want to go to SaKaMi instead, but when the Mass finishes, it would be 1pm and too late to go to Kitayama from 3-jo.... I will probably urge Fr. Elmer to go there with me on Monday.

The photo above is chicken escalope with tomato mozzarella sauce. The recipe is by Gordon Ramsay. I'm saying this myself, but it tasted good. Maybe I felt it tasted good because I cooked it? It took less than 20 mins to cook for sure.

What the hell am I doing? Tomorrow is the deadline of my ...(secret)...!

An Educational Times' Article on BEER

2009-08-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

If you like beer, check this article.

In the near future, I'll write about whisky I tasted recently and the accident I had on the bike in which I ran over a turtle...

Introductiona to one nice blog

2009-07-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

Let me introduce you to: http://lamenthe.blogspot.com/

This blog is wonderful. The author is a good writer--I'm no way in a position to say if a writing is good or not because I am not good enough to judge. But, all the same, her writing excites my curiosity. Pleasant to read. It is almost a live broadcast of her travel. I met her in THE pub, my "local". She, in fact, taught me the expression, "local".

Maybe it is high time that I added "links" to my blog.

I wanna cook

2009-07-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

I wanna make steak au poivre. But how much should I elaborate to make the sauce?

I wanna make chicken cordon bleu again with a slightly modified recipe.

I love cooking because "if we eat chicken we have to cook it well for chicken and me."

My Attempt

2009-07-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

I have applied to the certification exams for interpreters. Keep you fingers crossed. I will probably fail in Japanese history and geography... If I fail in English, I will feel down. Bwahahah. Impossible. If I do, I'll say, "You know, there is a stupid exam. blah blah. Yes. Wait to hear it in a pub!"

Speaking of a pub, let me list what I had at Horie's last time:

1) Scapa, the whisky Horie san recommended and made me a Scotch whisky fan,
2) Ciroc (snap frost vodka), a French vodka made from grape fruit, unlike ordinary vodka, you can drink it,
3) Ileach CASK STRENGTH, quite different from the ordinary(?) Ileach, which is said to be a vatted whisky of Lagavulin and Caolila. I liked it. A loooog finish.

Two TV Series...unusually...

2009-07-12T13:02:00.001-07:00

This is my first time to talk about TV series, but there are two series you HAVE TO WATCH.

One is Yes, Minister and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister. The other is Blackadder.

They were both broadcasted in the 80s and probably in the early 90s. Hilarious if you like the British humor.

3 things

2009-06-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

1) I can't write equations on the blog. I could before. LaTex doesn't work any more.... I started to write about my recent mathematics and realized I couldn't type math symbols. Sucks.

2) Martini. I don't drink cocktails, or I just haven't had cocktails--of course, I have several times, but not so many times. I always thought if you had whisky and beer, what more do you want? Wait a sec. I'm having martini and I wanna go smoke. (Here, I go out to the veranda. -->) I'm back. Somehow I have hiccups. What was I talking about? Martini. Well, since summer is coming and for some other reasons, I bought a bottle of gin--gin, yes, everyone who knows me would say, "why not whisky? When summer approaches, I tend to buy rhum in addition to whisky and beer. This summer, I didn't buy rhum because I rather buy whisky if I pay the same price. Good rhum is as costly as nice whisky here. And inexpensive good rhum is hard to find. So I settled with gin, attracted to its bitter taste. Still, hiccups, hiccups. Now that I have gin, why don't I make martini? Probably there is Vermouth in the living room. Yes, there was. Do I have olive or orange or lemon? No. So, I made martini minus olive. But still it has an interesting taste! Gin and Vermouth goes well together really. I don't feel they were mixed. It is bitter. It is smooth. It has a pleasant flavor from vermouth. I say it's a very British taste. It is not continental. (Subjectivity matters. I think Martini is from the US, though..)

3) Writing. How can we freely write? I write three topics in this post. As a result, this post is ugly (as usual). If I want to write something readable, I have to concentrate on one topic. A good example is a mathematical writing. I prove something. If I want to present it elegantly, I should not mention how I discovered it or what implications it can have. There are so many things I want to write and I have to supress. I hope some day I will be good enough to be able to write whatever I want to in a readable fashion.

Here is a potential problem...this blog.

2009-05-31T23:24:00.000-07:00

Almost all the posts of my blog are not proofread. I don't read them back and correct grammar and expressions.

And now I began to look for translation jobs online. I apply for jobs online. If my potential client googles my name and finds this blog, s/he will doubt my English ability, grammar, composition skills, etc. etc.

I'm in trouble....

Maybe it is time to publish under anonymity...but I hate to hide my face...maybe I should reread all my posts...I don't have time for that; besides, I haven't written anything so important worth being reread!

I'm in a dilemma....

Foreign Languages

2009-05-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

Everyone has his or her reason to study foreign languages. I've attempted to study English, Tagalog, Russian, French and Latin, and I made a moderate success in English and acquired elementary skills in Tagalog and French (doubtful). As for Russian and Latin, I barely started it; I got books and dictionaries and started to read them, but that's it.

Lots of my friends study Japanese as a foreign language. Some may be studying it simply because they live in Japan; others may be studying it because they are attracted to the language itself. (Even) those who study it because they live in Japan may have come to Japan for some reasons; some may have gotten interested in this country for some reason; some simply got scholarship. Well, everyone is different.

Apprendre une langue, c'est vivre de nouveau. The French said something cool here. Yes, studying a new language enables you to see a new world. I started to study English when I entered junior high school because it was required. I loved it. It was a whole new world to me. Every time I found a phrase I learned in movies, I got excited. Good old days. Soon I got a screenplay of Back to the Future III and watched the movie and memorized it. At the peak I learned, maybe, more than 70% of the lines by heart. Also, in those days, I had already decided to be a physicist--I somehow turned into an amateur mathematician, though--I knew I would need to read and write papers in English. That was a great incentive for me.

In college years, I was baptized to be catholic, influenced by my Filipino friends. I've been to the Philippines twice. A beautiful country. Pre-Spanish culture and colonial influence and Cathlicism and native religion; all woven together. I wanted to learn more about it, so I began to study Filipino (Tagalog, it depends on definitions). Somehow, when I study it, I feel I live a new life. Because I was so influenced by Filipinos and attended their mass for a year before my baptism even today when I attend Tagalog Mass in Hikone, I feel I'm back to my starting point. By the way, when it is sung, Tagalog is a really beautiful language. Without beauty, I wouldn't study it. :)

French...here comes French. It is simply beautiful. Their food (viende not poisson according to this Japanese guy, me) is redonculously (oh, I guess I'm up-to-date with today's American vocabulary) delicious. (I shouldn't forget snails. Such a nice stuff with bread!) These are main reasons I study it. If some day I go to France, I may have other reasons to study it. Oh, I shouldn't forget to mention the excellence of wine and Belgian beer.

Russian. It sounds cool and they produced a lot of great writers.

Lain. Catholicism. It is also beautiful when sung. My friend priest gave me Breviarium Romanum I may study it in the near future.

Right now I want to study Tagalog and Latin and French in order. However, since I do not want to waste my French grammar, I may say Tagalog=French and then Latin is the order.

What is your incentive to study foreign languages? (But I think French is really an obscure language...Where there are too many vowels, how can we communicate with each other?)

P.S. In youtube there are so many nice Filipino church songs like Ang Tanging Alay Ko, Sino Ako, etc. I'll ask Sister Alta (This is how I have known her for 7 years.) if I can play the guitar for them...with a warning that I need a LOT of practice. I'm really a free bird celebrating my life. Speaking of birds, there is one poem I'm writing. You may read it some day.

I can't find a title for this because of its nature...

2009-05-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

I originally started blogging to post "stories" and to keep in touch with friends. That was the mistake. What the next sentence should be? Should it be "What do I mean?" or a simple "Why?"? (Sorry, I'm terrible at punctuations.) I can't think after having whisky and while listening to Noel Gallagher singing unplugged on youtube. Anyways, let me explain what I mean. (How lame!)

By the way, I love Noel Gallagher and Oasis. Equally. I love both of them. That Noel can acoustically perform their ((mostly) his) songs means that their songs are deep: can be interpreted in many ways and filled with potential. For example, Wonderwall is an Oasis's song. Ryan Adams found another possibility in this song and did a wonderful job. But listen to Noel's acoustic version; it is yet another interpretation. And I love that. Also, listen to Masterplan at Maine Road.

Speaking of music, My friend, A., had the first live in a club in Japan last Saturday. It was cool. I think they sang their own songs but I'm not sure. In the club, one guy spoke to me and I recognized him at once even though it was almost a year since I last met him. (well, it was only my third time to see him..) He is a musician or a photographer or a painter or something artistic, I guess. It's interesting how you come across people.

Shit, I did it again. This is exactly what I wanted to say. This is exactly what I wanted to say. This blog is for posting "stories" and updating my friends with my everyday events. Since I have two purposes, I always go back and forth between different topics. So I'm thinking of having two different blogs: one for stories, probably posted once or twice a month, the other as a diary. But them, it is still difficult to decide where to post my reports of whiskies and stuff.... I'm in a dilemma. Help....

Till I find a solution, please go through my entries using "labels", which are again not as accurate as it should be.

I'm wondering if I should reread this entry and check my grammar. I've been random anyways....

Coq au Vin

2009-05-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

I cooked coq au vin for the first time. I love this kind of dish. The chicken was so tender that I didn't need to use knife at all. I ate three times as much as in the picture. Too much? Maybe. It took me some time to convince my mom that drinking wine is necessary for this kind of dish. She doesn't drink, so she can't understand why it is important to have wine. Since I'm always (thought to be) trying to find a reason to drink, she probably thought that I had cooked this in order to drink wine. (Partly true....) But see! Once we started to eat, she asked for a small glass of wine (pinot noir). See! I told you!

Yamazaki Distillery (and one more sentence)

2009-05-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

OK. I'm going to write at least two different things here today. I'll number each. Each section is independent of one another. (It sounds like a mathematical writing, doesn't it?)

1.

Last Sunday, I went to Kyoto and after attending the 12 o'clock mass, and then I went to the Suntory Yamazaki Distillery. It was a tour of the distillery for 30 minutes or so with a tasting session for another 30 minutes; we had Yamazaki 12 yrs old and Hakusyu 12 yrs old. In addition to the free tasting session, the tour itself was a series of discoveries. I knew how whisky is made, but seeing how they actually carry out those processes was interesting. Have you seen lines of pot stills or walked between the lines of casks? I was also able to smell new pots, a young "whisky" before barrelling. This confirmed the often said how-aging-is-important-for-whisky. Also there were two casks whose sides were made of glass so that you can see inside. One was 4(?) years old and the other was 12 years old. They were good example of how the color of whisky changes in the aging process and how much it evaporates from barrels (angel's share). Seeing is different from reading.

2.

Once again I want to spend most of my time on mathematics. Enough said; brevity is the soul of wit.

My First Guinness Stew

2009-04-18T22:21:00.000-07:00

If you like Guinness and beef stew, why not make Guinness stew? It is spring and too warm for stew? But still, you love Guinness, right?

Since I wanted to give bitter and malty taste to the stew, I used Guinness Foreign Extra, one of the most robust varieties of Guinness available around here. Result: almost exactly what I wanted. :)

My First Soda Bread

2009-04-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

Necessity is the mother of one's inner chef. As I live in Hikone, I need to cook what I like for myself. This is the first one, (Irish) soda bread. It was quite easy to bake; ingredients are easy to find except for buttermilk. I used yogurt and milk instead. This soda bread is made from (480g of) flour, NaHCO2, milk, butter, salt and sugar. Considering it was my first attempt, I was satisfied with the outcome. I'll improve my cooking skill from now on. Let us wait and see.