Taste With The Eyes

cold soba noodles with eggplant and mango

cold soba noodles with eggplant and mango
red onion, basil, cilantro
garlic chile lime dressing, peanut and lime garnish

This is Chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s dish. He says, “It is the refreshing nature of the cold buckwheat noodles, the sweet sharpness of the dressing and the muskiness of the mango that make it so pleasing.” Hard to argue with that.

I made a few minor changes, including grilling the eggplant instead of frying in sunflower oil. And I added peanuts. The photo of this dish in his book Plenty looks like a mess, a delicious mess. Initially I plated it in the Taste With The Eyes style, but it looked too fussy, so I dumped the whole lot onto another platter, to mess it up, just like Ottolenghi. Not only did I think the noodle dish was spectacular, but I learned a lesson in plating too. Sometimes disheveled is better.

cold soba noodles with eggplant and mango recipe

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Start the Party with Grilled Oysters!

“Gimme oysters and beer

For dinner every day of the year

And I’ll feel fine… I’ll feel fine”

Jimmy Buffett

We’re right in the middle of grilling season. This year, in addition to the usual steaks and burgers, why not change things up and throw some live oysters on the grill?

On the barbecue, oysters take a few minutes to heat up and once hot, they are much easier to shuck than the live ones. Cooked oysters are a great way to introduce tentative guests to the spell of the oyster cult. Sputtering and popping oysters on the grill are a terrific way to get the party started.

That old admonition to eat oysters in months that are only spelled with the letter “r” is no longer applicable. Oysters begin to spawn when the water temperature rises. Spawning oysters, while not inedible, are unpleasant and milky. Some oysters are bred to be incapable of spawning so these are consumed all year long. Additionally, during the hot months, vendors can easily import oysters from cooler regions where they are not spawning. Nowadays, there are so many areas where oysters are farmed, it is not difficult to find non-spawning oysters year round.

Six Toppings for Hot Oysters

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The BLP Sandwich {bacon, lettuce, peach}

The BLP Sandwich

Thick Smoky Bacon, Crisp Green Lettuce
Rosemary Balsamic Grilled Summerflame Yellow Peaches
Sharp Salty Bleu Cheese, Saffron Mayonnaise

Oh heavens no. I’m not trying to improve on the classic BLT sandwich. But…this week Food Network is featuring peaches and somehow BLP got stuck in my head. A cute play on BLT, no? I start to imagine other foods that might pair well with the summer peach. Rosemary, syrupy balsamic vinegar, black pepper, bleu cheese, saffron. And just like that the BLP Sandwich was born.

And it just so happens that my absolute favorite wine this summer is MacMurray Ranch Pinot Gris 2011 from the Russian River Valley in Somona. Damn, if this wine doesn’t taste like peaches. And baked apples and figs. Oh gosh, it is round and creamy and balanced and just plain luscious. Please try it with my BLP, sweet summer happiness will ensue.

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K-POP {Korean Popcorn} A Thank You, A Celebration, and A Giveaway

upodate

K-POP {Korean Popcorn}

Fresh Popped Corn, Sesame Oil, Gochugaru,
Sesame Seeds, Korean Roasted Sea Salt, Seasoned Seaweed

Last month Taste With The Eyes turned six years old, the date came and went without any fanfare. But I simply cannot let the milestone go by without thanking you, my dear friends and readers. With your encouragement and inspiration I cooked, created, photographed and wrote over 700 posts since 2007.

That’s worthy of a little celebration. So I want to share something really good and really simple. Something you can enjoy with your friends! This popcorn was dreamt up on the spur of the moment when guests stopped by unexpectedly one evening while I was in the middle of cooking a Korean dish. I poured some Hite beers and popped some corn. With the ingredients that were sitting on my counter, I dressed the popped corn. It was an instant hit! A sweet, savory, spicy snack. And thanks to my friend Michelle, it has a name: K-POP!

The K-POP Kit

Gourmet Popcorn
Toasted Sesame Oil
Gochugaru (red chili powder)
Roasted Sesame Seeds
Korean Roasted Sea Salt
Seasoned Seaweed (sugar, salt, sesame)

Heat a heavy-bottomed medium-sized pot over medium-high heat. Add 3 T. canola oil and 1/2 cup corn kernels. Swirl pot to coat the kernels with oil. Cover and cook until the popping stops, about 5 minutes. Place the popcorn in a serving bowl. Sprinkle the popcorn with roasted sea salt, drizzle with sesame oil, season with spicy gochugaru, shake with sesame seeds, toss with the crispy crunchy seaweed. There are no exact measurements, just season according to your taste.

K-POP Kit Giveaway

As a small token of my appreciation, I would love to send one of you a K-POP Kit. The Kit includes everything you need (except canola oil) to make many batches of this sweet, savory, spicy snack for your friends and family. Simply leave a comment on this post, and I will choose a winner randomly on August 31st. Thanks to you, it has been and continues to be an absolute pleasure to be the author of this culinary anthology…

UPDATE 8/9/2013:

K-POP Korean Popcorn is now a featured recipe in the Korea Herald Business.
Kamsahamnida K-Herald!

UPDATE 8/31/2013:

Congratulations to K-POP Winner ~ Brandon @ Kitchen Konfidence!

Stuffed Cucumber Kimchi with Shrimp and Minari

Stuffed Cucumber Kimchi
Oi Sobaegi 오이소박이
With Shrimp, Minari, Sesame Oil, Sesame Seeds, Gochugaru

Jupiter has aligned once again with Mars, in the blogging universe that is. Food Network’s Summer Fest features cucumbers this week. Our monthly cooking group, the Creative Cooking Club’s theme is “stuff-it.” And I planned to create another seasonal Korean fusion dish this week celebrating the honor of having my recipes featured in the Korea Herald Business.

Korean + Summer + Cucumber + Stuffed = Oi Sobaegi

My recipe for stuffed cucumber kimchi came from studying 5 Korean cookbooks in my collection, plus researching many recipes online. One thing I kept noticing, especially on google image – the final dish was not very attractive; green logs with all this stuffing hanging out. No doubt they were delicious, but my challenge was to make the dish pleasing to the eye as well as the palate.

Pairing with shrimp was a natural combination, as the kimchi recipe contains tiny dried white shrimp. My recipe also contains a good deal of ginger, it is quite zippy. Minari is a bright herb sometimes called Korean watercress which adds a fresh note. I also used the thicker Chinese chives to hold the sliced cucumber together, making for a neat pretty presentation. This, my first attempt at oi sobaegi was surprisingly successful, so I am sharing the original recipe here.

Cookbook Resources:

Korean Cooking by Young Jin Song
Seoultown Kitchen by Debbie Lee
The Korean Table by Taeyung Chung
The Kimchi Cookbook by Kim Man-Jo
Aeri’s Korean Cookbook 1 by Aeri Lee

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