Doi Moi

We recently visited Doi Moi, and having visited Vietnam, I had high expectations for the food.  When you first walk in, you're greeted by a bright, inviting space.  It's a stark contrast to it's sister restaurants, Estadio & Proof, which are filled with dark wood and low lighting.  I immediately noticed the delicious smells coming from the open kitchen, and knew we were in for a treat!

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We started with a round of drinks, my mom and I opting for the basil/lemongrass/cachaca cocktail, while Justin tried the tamarind and peanut-infused bourbon drink.  The tamarind wasn't too sour at all, and peanut and bourbon is a natural winning combination.  Both were absolutely delicious, and dangerous in the sense that you could easily down the drinks in a few gulps if you're not careful.  They're that delicious!

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As with most small plates restaurants, 2-3 dishes per person were recommended, and they came out as they were prepared.  We were told that everything was sourced from southeast Asia, and we were impressed to hear that everything is fresh, never frozen.  You could see the freshness in every dish that came to the table.  We decided to order in rounds, so we started with the green papaya salad, salt & pepper fried squid, and the tumeric sablefish.  The papaya salad had a nice crunch, and the distinctive tang of fish sauce, but I was looking for a little more heat, a little more sweet, and a lot more peanuts.  The squid were perfectly crisp, tender, and not greasy.  The sablefish was nicely seasoned, and flaked apart when you stuck your fork/chopsticks into it.

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For our next round, we tried the jungle curry with halibut, crab fried rice, and the pork & shrimp spring rolls.  We're huge fans of jungle curry, as it was one of our favorites from Little Serow, and we even made some at home.  The halibut was cooked perfectly, but the curry was missing some heat, and I just wish there'd been more of the curry sauce.  There was a surprising amount of crab in the fried rice, and I kept going back for more.  The spring rolls were definitely a table favorite.  They were long, skinny, fried rolls, packed to the gills with pork and shrimp.  Our server recommended wrapping the rolls in a lettuce leaf with some of the sliced cucumbers and carrots that were on the plate, then dipping it into the sweet & sour sauce.  The unfortunate, and somewhat puzzling, part was that were was only 1 lettuce leaf on the plate.  He gladly brought us more lettuce upon request, however.  His method was delicious though.  You had the warm crispy roll, balanced out by the cool, crunchy veggies, finished with the tangy dipping sauce.

We were still a bit hungry, so we decided to try the roasted half chicken, which we'd seen several other tables order, along with a beef dish and pork skewers.  If you're going to order the chicken (you definitely should), I'd recommend doing so towards the beginning of your meal because it takes 30-40 minutes to cook.  It is well worth the wait.  The skin is perfectly crisp, while the meat was still juicy and tender.  The sauce for the chicken was a bit too acidic, and it was somewhat of a shame to dip perfectly crisp chicken skin in any sauce.  The beef had rich flavors of soy and ginger, and came with shark sriracha, the Thai version of sriracha (we were kinda hoping that it was sriracha seasoned with shark fin or something).  It's basically the same as the one we're accustomed to with the rooster on the bottle, although thinner in consistency and a tad bit sweeter.  The pork skewers were equally delicious, served with a crunchy peanut sauce.  The sauce was so good that I ended up dipping some of the chicken in it.

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We finished off the meal with the fried bananas and a couple of iced coffees.  The bananas were steaming hot with a thin, crisp batter, and toasted, shave coconut sprinkled on top.  The banana had a nice sweetness to them, and I loved the fresh coconut.  The iced coffees were also great, and although they had sweetened condensed milk in them, they weren't cloyingly sweet.

A few of the dishes lacked some heat, but maybe they're trying to cater to a more western palette.  Overall, it was a great meal, and I will definitely go back to try the rest of the dishes on the menu.

Our 100th Post!

What better way to celebrate our 100th post, than to go all out with some molecular gastronomy?  I F#*%king love science, almost as much as I do food, so why not combine the two?

Justin has been chomping at the bit to try some molecular gastronomy ever since we got our hands on some sodium alginate and calcium chloride for Christmas.  These may sound like something you'd find in a chemistry lab, but when mixed together in the right proportions, it allows you to sphere-ify liquids.  But that wasn't the only technique we tried.

On the menu, we have some sous vide duck breast with a cherry-port relish and cherry "caviar", roasted asparagus with grapefruit "snow", and some coconut ice cream with Thai tea pearls.

Let's start with the duck.  Start by scoring the skin of the duck, making sure you only cut into the skin and fat.  We then seasoned it with salt, pepper, and some chopped rosemary.  Place the duck in a vacuum-sealed bag, and place in a pot of water at about 135 degrees.  If you don't have a vacuum-sealer, like us, you can use a straw to suck the air out of a ziplock bag (just don't suck up any raw duck juices!).

You'll want to cook the duck for about an hour.  Once it's cooked through, we placed it in a hot pan, skin-side down, to render out the fat, and get the skin nice and crispy.

Meanwhile, we got to work on the cherry-port relish and roasted asparagus.

We used about 2tbsp of the rendered duck fat to saute our shallots, and then added some chicken broth, the halved and pitted cherries, port, and some honey.  Then you just let it simmer and reduce.

Because we were going to sphere-ify our sauce, we didn't want it to reduce too much.  We pulled about 1/4c of the liquid out of the pot, and set it in the freezer to cool.

While it was cooling, we mixed up the sodium alginate with some water.  This is the solution we'd mix with the cherry-port sauce to make spheres.  We also mixed the calcium chloride with water, which served as the water bath that we'd be dropping our cherry mixture into.  We followed the ratios found here.

Once our cherry sauce had cooled to room temperature, we added it to the sodium alginate mixture.  Then we loaded it up into a plastic syringe, making sure to get out any air bubbles.  Then just drop your sauce into the calcium chloride water bath, letting them hang out for a few minutes to really congeal.  Justin figured out a good technique for creating larger spheres; place the tip of the syringe close to the surface of the water bath, and as you push down on the syringe, move it in a circular motion.  This left us with big beads of cherry sauce.

Once they've congealed, scoop them out of the water bath and place into a plain water bath to rinse off.  Then carefully dry them on a paper towel, making sure not to puncture your spheres.

As for the asparagus, it doesn't require any chemistry equipment or strange powders.  All you need is a freezer.  You can do this step well in advance since the grapefruit needs time to freeze.  You'll need to cut the grapefruit into supremes (segments), which sounds like a really fancy technique, but it's actually quite easy to do.

Start by slicing off each end of your grapefruit.  Then, with it standing on one of the flat ends, start slicing off the rind, following the curve of the grapefruit, and doing your best to take off only the rind and pith.  You'll be left with a rind-less grapefruit.  Holding the grapefruit in one hand, start slicing out the segments.  If you're more of a visual learner, here's a quick video.  Once you have enough, just place them on some parchment or wax paper, and place in the freezer.

Rather than steam the asparagus, we decided to roast them.  So once they're cleaned, just toss them on a sheet tray with some olive oil and pepper, and pop 'em in the oven.  When they're roasted to your liking, pull them out, and place them on a plate or platter to cool.  While they're cooling, you can chop and toast up your almonds.  We also finished the asparagus with a little lemon salt, for some added citrus.  Just before you sit down to eat, grab your frozen grapefruit segments from the freezer, and using a microplane, grate them over your asparagus.

Voila! -- it looks super sophisticated, but it is really simple.  If you want to impress someone, whether it's your in-laws, a special someone, or friends, try this recipe.  It's becoming one of our signature dishes.

Now, onto dessert!

We started with the ice cream base; heavy cream, coconut milk, and some vanilla bean went into a pot to boil.  At the same time, we whisked together the egg yolks and sugar.

Once the cream/milk mixture had thickened, we tempered in the eggs.  Make sure you go slowly so you don't end up with scrambled eggs.  Once the mixture comes to temperature you can add more in all at once.  We also toasted up some shredded coconut, to be added at the end.  Next, throw your base back on the stove and let it thicken a little more, until it will stick to the back of your spoon.

Now your base should be all set.  Go ahead and let it continue to cool.  Once it will no longer create condensation go ahead and throw it in the fridge.  This basic recipe will work for regular churned ice cream, creme brulee, etc.  But we had something much more interesting in mind for 100th post.  Dry ice!  It's perfect for our purposes because it is cheaper, and colder than an anti-griddle.  Ok, we can't really say don't try this at home...but be careful if you do.  We consulted this webpage for some tips.  Honestly, it was a lot of trial and error.  Similar to the spheres, it took some experimentation to get into the groove with the technique.


First we tried sandwiching the dry ice between 2 cookie sheets, and pouring the ice cream base on top of the top tray to let it freeze.  The tray wasn't cold enough/our base was too warm, so it didn't freeze.

Next we tried placing a metal spatula on the dry ice and pouring the base onto the spatula.  Purportedly, this is how Grant Achatz experimented with it prior to opening his restaurant.  This method worked a little better, but the ice cream disc stuck to the spatula.

Then we tried pouring the base onto some freezer paper that was directly on top of the dry ice.  Again, it kind of worked, but the ice cream stuck to the paper.

Through our trial and error (and making a bit of a mess), we noticed that the drops of ice cream base that dripped directly onto the dry ice were forming nice little pearls, almost like dippin' dots.  So we resorted to pouring the base directly onto the ice.  This gave us a little more room to work with, and allowed us to get a little creative, and made various shapes and splatter designs.

We also experimented with different textures.  You may notice some brown specks in the picture above on the right.  That's the shredded coconut we'd toasted up.  As the ice cream solidified on the ice, we carefully lifted it off with a spatula, and placed it in the freezer.  If you want it to be frozen on the outside but creamy in the middle, don't bother putting it in the freezer...just eat it.  If you want it a little more frozen, stick it in the freezer while you make more.

To compliment our coconut ice cream, we made some Thai tea pearls.  We used the same method as we did for the cherry sauce, though we doubled the amount of tea for a more concentrated flavor.

The tea pearls were a welcome addition to the ice cream.  It took us awhile to get the shot for our final presentation so it didn't turn out the prettiest.  While we may not be ready to be chef de partie at Minibar or Alinea, we made food in our own kitchen that tasted nearly as delicious!  We hoped you enjoyed this as much as we had fun experimenting with some food science.  Thanks for following along for our first 100 posts, and here's to 100s more!

Welcome to the Jungle [Curry]

I'm pretty sure I won Justin over on just our 2nd date when we ended up at Little Serow for dinner.  If you're not familiar, it's a tiny, hole-in-the-wall place, behind an unmarked door, that was named one of Bon Appetit's 50 best new restaurants last year.  If you're lucky enough to get a seat, you're in for 5-7 courses of delicious northern and northeastern Thai food.  This isn't your typical coconut curry and pad Thai that you get in most Thai restaurants.  Instead, the flavors are tangy, and progress in heat.  The ingredient I was most surprised to find was dill.

It was only a matter of time before we attempted to recreate this cuisine at home.  We decided to make a jungle curry, native to northeastern Thailand.  Coconuts don't grow in that region, so this curry ends up looking more like a broth.

We started by prepping our veggies; some magda squash, globe squash, baby bok choy, and snap peas, green onion, all fresh from the share, along with some white onion, dill and cilantro.

 Then we fried up some shallots that would be used as a garnish.  Just slice them then, and drop them into some hot oil.  You don't have to bread them or anything.  Keep your eye on them though.  They fry up quick.

We heated our wok with some vegetable oil and tossed in a couple cloves of chopped garlic, a healthy squeeze of sriracha, and a couple chopped dried chiles.  Once they became fragrant, we tossed in the bok choy, and started to build the broth.  I didn't have any curry paste on hand, but I did have some amok curry powder from a past trip to Cambodia, so we tossed that in instead.  We also added a bit of brown sugar, some oyster sauce, and a bit of fish sauce.  Now, the smell of fish sauce is not appealing at all, but it adds a nice salty and tangy flavor to a lot of southeast Asian dishes.

From here, we started adding in the squashes, onions, snap peas, and some chicken broth to round out the broth.  As everything continued to simmer together, we added in our cubed chicken.  Within minutes, the We plated up the curry, garnished with the cilantro, dill, and fried shallots.

It was really, really good, and very different from typical Thai food such as peanut satay.  The squashes were especially yummy as they soaked up all the complex flavor from the curry, while the heat didn't overwhelm their nutty taste.  I have to say...it was a pretty close rendition to a dish we enjoyed at Little Serow last summer, and much quicker than waiting in line for a table.

Going Stir Fry Crazy!

Its Tuesday...Tuesday...gotta get down on Tuesday...

Ok, I guess it doesn't quite have the same ring to it as Friday, but it brings the same excitement since we finally had a CSA share to pick up.  It feels like an eternity since our last share, and we were both chompin' at the bit to see what we'd get today.  So ...without further ado...

Wouldn't it be our luck that we got ANOTHER cabbage!  We're really excited about our meat share...the bison NY strip steak and the pork sausages.  For the sausages we had a choice between ham with cider, or pork butt and pork bellies.  It was an obvious choice here.  I'm pretty excited about the purple carrots and the kholrabi as well.  I don't think I've eaten kholrabi, so it will be fun experimenting with it.

And since its been a while since we've whipped something up in the kitchen, we're bringing you tonight's meal...free of charge!

We thought ahead for once and defrosted some chicken overnight, knowing we'd need a protein to go with whatever veggies we picked up tonight.  To keep things simple, and since I scored a new wok for Christmas, we settled on a Thai peanut stir-fry.

So here's what we started wth...the purple carrots, broccoli, a sweet potato, spinach and some dill from the share.  The green onions and mushrooms were leftover from the weekend and needed to be used.  So  got to peeling and chopping the sweet potato and the purple carrots.

Look how pretty these carrots are!

While I finished chopping everything, Justin was busy cutting the chicken breasts into chunks.  Then he lightly coated them in some seasoned flour.  We used coconut oil to cook everything, so that went into the wok with a few cloves of minced garlic.  Once that was nice and aromatic, we threw in the carrots and sweet potatoes, since those would take the longest to cook, along with the chicken.

Once the chicken browned a bit, we threw in the broccoli.  As the chicken continued to cook, we threw in the mushrooms, spinach, and green onions.  We also threw in a bit of sesame oil for an added layer of flavor

Once the spinach wilted, it was time to make the sauce.  We started by adding the coconut milk.  Then came the peanut butter.  

We just kept mixing and stirring until the peanut butter had melted down and everything was coated in sauce.  To top off the dish, we toasted up some sesame seeds, drizzled on some sriracha, and sprinkled on some chopped dill.

It was a great way to kick off this week's share!