Hwedupbap.

Really, that's a word. As a child (/prior to 4:27p today) I thought "hwedupbap" was pronounced "Pedobap." Come to find out, pedobap is an abbreviation for pedobaptist. I assumed that would have something to do with small children and a Pedobear-esque figure, so really I wasn't so far off. I'm basically on the same language level as a two year old Korean with a speech impediment, unless this is a prospective employer in which case everything on my resumé is true.

Now that you've been primed with a useless smattering of non-phonemic pronunciation respellings, I give you Hwedupbap ("Hwe" - fish, "dup" - over, "bap" -rice/grains). It's similar to the popular bibimbap, but through a pescatarian raw foodist's lens. In a positive, edible way. A poor man's dish made extremely chic, hwedupbap throws together raw seafood, vegetables, rice, and whatever other scraps are left in your fridge/hovel. Gochujang (a Korean sweet & spicy red pepper sauce) covers up any less than perfect bits in the end so it's unnecessary to put this much effort into presentation:

But when has that ever stopped me.

The recipe is simple and consists of three parts: Cook rice. Cut a lot of stuff. Mix everything in a large bowl with gochujang. The gochujang comes in an extremely thick paste so you'll need to dilute it with water, vinegar and a touch of sugar (3:2:1 gochujang:water:vinegar ratio, or to taste). You can use whatever seafood you'd like - here I've used razor clams, raw tuna, shrimp (blanched, but I guess you can skip that step with ebi), salmon and tai. I'd say fish roe makes up the major texture component, plus it seasons the entire dish so don't skip it. I added four kinds because I'm into being excessive: pollack, wasabi seasoned, black lumpfish and salmon roe. I also included slivered daikon, cucumber, red lettuce, Asian pear, scallions and daikon sprouts.

Like I said, you could just chuck all of this in a bowl without fussing over bias cuts and color blocking because it goes from this:

To this:

Also, don't use extremely hot rice. It'll partially cook your fish and set you on your way to mealy lukewarm stomach virus territory. I had to use up some leftover brown rice so I heated it ever so slightly to room temp before adding. Enjoy!

This post is brought to you by mother dearest who brought all these ingredients for me from Ranch Mart. *clap, clap, clap* Hurray, I'm spoiled!

Mario Batali, Houston, Babbo.

Often I (along with the rest of Houston) try to convince myself I live in a city as cosmopolitan and fulfilling as the next. Then I go to New York every few months and pummel that idea to shit. Arguably, Houston isn't lacking on many fronts - our art is rated 3rd in the nation, music is finally coming through thanks to the renovated Fitzgerald's/pegstar. We have enough restaurants to regain our title as "fattest city"(and possibly the rest of these). Old money keeps our streets draped in live oaks. Our ethnic populace gives us cred.

However, there's a refinement that our gritty metropolitan never seems to reach, much less maintain. It's not just the weighted cutlery or the sommeliers with actual licenses, it's the confidence and finesse. We're always trying to prove ourselves. Others are what we aspire to. As a native Houstonian, it hurts to think my city is always chasing after others, but the near universal argument in Houston's favor seems to be, "Our nightlife is just as good as L.A." never "Chicago's skyline can't compare to Houston."

On to the food! I had the privilege of dining at Babbo and Otto, both in NYC and both owned by Mario Batali. I didn't take many pictures, but I did drink enough wine. Those things relate more than you think.

Yep.

Rhett and I met while English Majors at UT. We had to do interpretive dance with synchronized breathing for our final project in Gay and Lesbian Literature and Culture. No one would give me a job after detailing my English degree so I had to get a law degree.

Batali's chefs did some voodoo on this Octopus. It was tentacled velvet enrobed in a sweet charred crust, reminiscent of  teriyaki and the dried cuttlefish I took to school as snacks in childhood. Those were rough years.

Rhett's face is about how I felt about this beef cheek ravioli.

DUCK BONANZA! If bonanzas were classy. This one involved duck breast and confit leg, so it might pass muster. 

Wild striped bass, sweet potato sauce heavily influenced by black peppercorns, chorizo vinaigrette that was less porky than expected. Still, excellent dish. 

1 of 2 Desserts - Sweet corn pudding, cornmeal cookies, blackberries. This sounds much less exciting than it actually was.

By the by, DaMarco Wiles's Dolce Vita is knock off, albeit pretty good, of Otto.

Tomatoes and junk.

This isn't a recipe post; sorry all you rabid cooks out there. I know you must be chomping at the bit.

I'm here to tell you something important: it's okay to refrigerate tomatoes. And slather ketchup on your steak. And eat brie that hasn't come to room temperature. And believe that a duncan hines boxed cake is more delicious than a $12 slice of flourless chocolate torte.

You know what's not okay? People who tell you your tastes are wrong. My philosophy - Eat what satisfies you, give everything a shot, try make it healthy if you feel flabby and, dear god, sustainable/local if you can help it. Don't let militant foodie snobbery shame you into eating that non-artisanal provolone deli slice in the dark. Let's all calm down and remember food is about nourishment, happiness and sharing.

Don't worry, I'm not going soft on you. The ultimate rule: Don't forget the sauce.

Fish in the Sea.

Ladies and Gents, this has been a trying week - professionally, socially, and domestically. When forced to reckon with new beginnings, supporters always seem to lovingly smash that age old adage "there are other fish in the sea" in your face. It got me thinking, though there might be infinite fish in the sea (which, fyi I'm telling you there are not) our selection is so limited by our geographic area, education, interests, etc., it doesn't matter how many fish there are out there, more so it matters how many there are right here. Sure, chance is nice to think about, but rarely does chance win over odds. /cynical babbling

Gastronomically speaking, we are hugely limited by our location. Though we are now blessed and burdened with year round, joylessly average asparagus from Mexico and apples from Chile, those items are brought to the U.S. (or wherever) by a select few importers and the USDA. Imagine the number of fruits and vegetables, fish and wildlife you've never seen or tasted because one company or another decided its shipability and shelf-life is inferior to, say, a mangosteen (which was somewhat recently taken off of the USDA ban list) or sapote (now introduced to US soil). A few days ago I went to the new Whole Foods on Waugh to check out the goods and found this gem

Pompano that went into the wrong part of the sea.

I was originally introduced to Pompano while fishing near Koh Samui, Thailand. This spectacular fish is abundant in the waters of Southeast Asia and, apparently, Florida, but is rarely seen in stores and even more rarely available responsibly caught (this specimen was sustainably farmed in Indonesia - yay slow food?). I'm sure it will catch on quick, though - the flesh is mild and moist with a huge yield and few bones. The filets come off in satisfying steak-like chunks, but don't suffer the textural chalkiness of larger predatory fish like swordfish. I'm tellin' ya, she's a beaut. Cook the pompano whole and introduce yourself to a whole new fish in the sea.




Whole Roasted Pompano, Korean Style.
Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• (1) 2.5 lbs. Pompano, cleaned & scaled but otherwise left whole. The fish should not have a strong smell and should have clear eyes (this one was probably a day or two old by the time I got it, but beggars and choosers and all that)
• (1) bunch green onion, divided into two parts and slivered, setting one half aside for garnish
• (1) 2.5" knob of ginger, slivered
• 2 T soy sauce
• 1/4 c sake
• either 2 T Thai sweet chili sauce or an additional 1T soy + 2T honey
• 2T Chile garlic sriracha
• 2 T sesame oil
• 1 T mirin
• 1 tsp rice wine vinegar (optional)
  

Preparation

1) Make three (3) deep incisions on each side of the fish down to the skeletal structure. Place in a large baking dish.

2) Stuff the slits and cavity with the slivered ginger and 1/2 bunch of green onions you've so lovingly prepared. Throw the remaining aromatics over the top.

3) Mix all the seasoning liquids in a bowl and pour over the fish.

4) Cover with tin foil and bake in a preheated 400F oven for 25 minutes. This creates a steamy, moist environment so your dinner doesn't turn into sea leather.

5) After 25m, remove the foil and turn the oven up to 500F. Bake the fish for an additional 10 minutes or until the fish is completely opaque and the edges have browned. You can spoon the reduced liquid over the fish to lacquer the skin before doing the 500F bake.

6) Remove to a platter and garnish with green onion slivers. If you want to be fancy about it, soak the green onion in ice water. This will cause it to curl into pretty tendrils.

The best meat comes from the collar and belly, morsels you'll only get with whole fish.

Flying fish.

Ceviche.

One of my most favoritest people, Bradley Short, inspired me with his delectable blog post to be, well, not lazy and finally write this ceviche entry. On my way back from New Orleans I was seized with the desire to eat healthy, which is probably attributed to eating 1,500 calorie meals like these the entire time:

Bacon sundae with praline and smoked salt. Because you need to find out the true limits of human salt and fat consumption.

Sweet potato praline. I'm not really into confections, despite the last two photos, but I would gladly shave off the last year of my life to have an easy supply of these.

Couchon at Couchon Butcher.

A cross section: Perfectly crispy skin surrounding moist chunks of aggressively spiced tenderloin.

Oh god, and the pancetta mac and cheese from Couchon is easily the best thing I've eaten all year. Or decade.

See aforementioned comment concerning sodium.

Yeah, so I've been on a healthy kick lately to combat the decadence of Nola. Luckily I was making the 4.5h car ride with a gal from Guadalajara who knows a thing or everything about ceviche. I grew up stealing tortillas from her house. She told me exactly how she and her fam makes their weekly ceviche:


Richter's Ceviche
Serves 6 hungry people.

• 1 lbs tilapia or a mixture of tilapia, peeled shrimp, bay scallops, or any other mild white seafood. This is not the place for oily fishy fish, no matter how much you're jonesing for omega-3s
• 1 large avocado, diced
• 1/2 large red onion, diced
• 1 c cilantro, chopped
• 3 roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
• 1 serrano pepper, diced fine (I leave the seeds in, but you can take them out if you don't like spice)
• Tony Chachere's, to taste (I didn't know what this was, but I wasn't about to argue with a strong willed Mexican woman)
• 3/4 c jicama, small cubes
• 1 T olive oil
• 12 limes (or more, depending)
• S&P

The start.

1. Cut the fish/shrimp/scallops into 1/4" to 1/2" cubes and place in a non-reactive vessel. The size of your seafood will determine how long of a lime soak is required. I like mine a bit chunky so it took about 30m of soaking. To the limes!

Jumping the gun on the limes.

2. Juice enough limes to cover the seafood completely. This is the less enjoyable part, especially when your hands are constantly covered in paper cuts from your office job.

Ooo.

3. Allow the fish to cook/marinade in the lime juice for at least 20m in the fridge. The proteins will denature causing it to become opaque. You can soak the fish for more or less time, depending on how "cooked" you like it. I usually go to about 30-40m. During this break, make your pico in a separate bowl...

Ew.

4. Combine the tomatoes, cilantro, onion, jicama, salt & pepper, Tony's, and olive oil in a separate container. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.

5. Drain your fish from the lime. I found this step unusual, but came to really like the balance when all the lime juice is drained away. Mix with the pico. Add the avocado at the end so it doesn't disintegrate. Mix and serve with tortilla chips/tortillas/a spoon/Couchon's sweet potato habanero sauce

Garnish fanciness on par with boredom.

Egg-stacy.

(I know, you didn't think a pun could get that bad. THE PUNISHER RETURNS.)

They say egg cookery is the most essential of chef-y skillz. To become a chef in Jacques Pepin's kitchen, prospective hires had to make a perfect omelette as their entrance exam. The 100 folds in a chef's toque symbolize the hundred ways he or she should be able to prepare an egg. So, friends, put away those egg beaters and find someone with a chicken coop. My friend, Bear, was kind enough to bring me a dozen from his hens in Austin.

BEHOLD. Btw, Chicken eggs vary in color due to pigments which are deposited as the eggs move through the hen's oviduct. These pigments are genetic, something like hair color, and vary from chicken to chicken. Mmm, oviduct deposits.

Many a befuddled friend has asked how restaurant eggs are always so perfectly round and/or cooked evenly. The secret? Either a very small pan or, as pictured below, a ring mold. You see, as the egg ages part of the white becomes watery and less viscous than the other parts. In fact, the height of the white is used commercially to determine the age of an egg (using Haugh units, which no one cares about). The watery parts spread out in a pan and cook to a leathery crisp by the time the yolk or perky white have a chance to feel the heat. Ring molds/small pans cajole the egg to an even thickness. This is a really long winded way of saying, it cooks better this way. Spray the ring mold with non-stick spray and make sure it's food safe before heating in a pan, please.

Free range eggs generally have a richer golden hue to their yolks because the chickens have had more opportunity to eat carotenoid rich plants (as opposed to being locked in a 8"x8" pen with only corn feed to console it)

Bien. I ended up putting this on an english muffin with roasted eggplant, spinach, and whole grain mustard but was too frenzied with hunger to get a good picture. Please try to imagine it for now and I will make it for you the next time I see you.

Now that you know more than you ever cared to know about eggs, here are some cool things you can do with them:

Soak an egg in vinegar to take off the shell.

Make Chinese Marbled Eggs. This preparation doesn''t change the flavor, but they're striking. Excellent instructions here: http://www.pigpigscorner.com/2011/01/marbled-red-vinasse-eggs.html

Attempt to play along with Wylie Dufrene and his love of eggs. And yes, the intro music is awful.

There's also:

• The perfect cheese souffle
• An egg briskly cooked atop a woodfired pizza
• Hollandaise
• Angel food cake
• Macarons
• Mayonnaise
• Challah
• Poached eggs on... anything
• Soft scrambled eggs, which are more complicated than you think. Go here for an appropriately fatty recipe. Also, when I googled "Bill's scrambled eggs" this came up: 

And so many other dishes. Doesn't seem so hard to get to 100, does it?

Quick Bytes.

For your digital consumption:

Korean "tacos": KFC (Korean fried chicken) w/ fried shallot & pickled ginger, traditional kalbi w/ goju & radish sprouts, tuna w/ garlic chives & roe

Unagi with a passable fried rice & garlic chives from my garden

Korean "8-ball" (seriously, that's the name in central market) zucchini panfried, then topped with pork which had been stewed in kimchee and pearl onions. Drizzle with a mixture of soy, mirin, sugar, and sake.

Somen noodles with salmon sashimi, cucumbers, and avocado. Slightly bastardized Korean dish that even a Korean would like.

Boil somen noodles for 3-5 minutes (they're very quick), rise said noodles under cold water and toss with ice cubes and sesame oil (lest it clump into an infuriating ball of paste) while you prepare the sauce of gojujang, sugar (to taste, a lot of folks like this dish extremely sweet but I'm not really one of them), mirin, and water to get a dribbly consistency (think emulsified vinaigrette). Toss the noodles in the sauce, lay on a bed of icy cold romaine slivers and top with other cold stuff. This is a summer dish - spicy and cold at the same time. Perfect for 100F days.

Jalebi - I unfortunately didn't make this (but maybe it's better I don't know how to make these honey soaked funnel cake confections). I actually despise honey in most applications, but enjoyed these.

The beginnings of our Puri.

No 2 drink minimum required for enjoyment, but doesn't hurt.