Ad Hoc's Fried Chicken

A couple of months ago, my mom bought the Thomas Keller Ad Hoc Fried Chicken mix from William Sonoma. It comes with two sets of brine and two sets of coating. Ad Hoc's fried chicken is famed to be among the best, yet possibly most complicated with dozens of different spices/ingredients, fried chicken in America. So it's great that William Sonoma came out with Thomas Keller's fried chicken mix for those who want to try it without going through the hassle of buying so many ingredients nor going to Ad Hoc.

Since we couldn't find packaged non-frozen chicken with different parts, we went with just 4 pounds of drumsticks. We brined all the chicken overnight, literally for about 22 hours (recommended 8-12hrs). When we were ready to cook the chicken the following day, we first coated each drumstick in the coating, then dipped it in the buttermilk, then coated again. The actual frying part was rather messy as you can imagine. We made a mistake with the first batch of 5 drumsticks by making the fire too high that the coating got kind of burnt. For the rest of the chicken, we fried them at almost the lowest heat, which ended up being perfect.

Overall, the fried chicken ended up being quite awesome, albeit guilt-inducing in all of its fried crispy goodness. The chicken was perfectly juicy, tender, and flavored inside, and the coating had the perfect amount of spice without actually being spicy. Being the Filipino I am, back at my Filipino household, I did admittedly eat my Ad Hoc fried chicken with white rice, and I have no regrets about that. I suppose I could have made biscuits or something, but I'm perfectly happy with some moist jasmine rice.

Unfortunately, William Sonoma no longer carries the Ad Hoc fried chicken mix, so I can't actually recommend this product anymore, which is too bad because it was awesome and well worth it. I'm not sure I'd really go out of my way to make his fried chicken brine and coating from scratch. It sounds like it would just be too much work for fried chicken.

Overall, awesome well-flavored fried chicken. Who doesn't like fried chicken?

Victorian Lavender Cookies with Rose Water Icing

Every time I'm bound to come back to Chicago for my in-between semester breaks, I always mean to eat out a lot and cook a lot. I've been doing a lot of the former, but not too much of the latter. I made these cookies following that exact recipe. The Spice House is an awesome store in the Chicagoland area that sells TONS of great quality spices at an amazing value. I'm talking prices are much less than your average McCormick spices. So I don't delve into a tangent, I'll have to save a review of this store for another post.

These cookies were honestly just ok to me, although my family did enjoy them. The cookie itself wasn't sweet enough, and the texture was a bit dry for my liking. The rose water icing, however, was what made the cookies at least somewhat enjoyable for me. It added a uniquely sweet flavor to the cookie. I was worried that these cookies would taste like flowers or handsoap/lotion, but thankfully, they weren't too floral in taste.

If I were to ever make these again, I'd have to play around and make some adjustments, most likely by either adding more sugar or some other spice/essence/extract to include another dimension to it.

I had extra rose water icing, so I decided to drizzle some of it on fresh strawberries. These were AMAZING. Rose water and strawberries might just be a better unique pairing than aged balsamic vinegar and strawberries. I'll have to indulge in rosewater&strawberries more before I leave for the Caribbean again.

Hotate Bacon

Whenever I go to an izakaya place in New York, I always get hotate bacon (bacon-wrapped scallops). Since my yakitori chicken skewers were a hit during Thanksgiving (yes, we grilled on Thanksgiving), I figured I'd try bacon-wrapped scallops for my sister's graduation party at home. Last time I made yakitori, I made my own sauce from scratch using soy sauce, rice wine, and sugar. A couple of weeks ago, I found yakitori marinade or about $2 at HMart and decided to just go easy and do things that way since it's cheaper and easier.

We got about 4 pounds of jumbo scallops for a total of $20, which was ridiculously cheap. Since they were so big, I cut each of them in half and padded each one dry. I then left the scallops in the marinade for about 45 minutes while my brother half-cooked the bacon. Since the scallops would cook faster on the grill than the bacon, we had to pre-cook the bacon. Then we wrapped each scallop half with bacon and put them on the skewers. This takes a little longer than you'd think.

Finally, we grilled the bacon-wrapped scallops for about 3 minutes on each side. Turns out they weren't tasty enough, so we drizzled a little bit of marinade on the finished products. Everyone loved this at my sister's grad party!

Pizza from scratch

I made Pizza Margherita from scratch the other day! It wasn't difficult, but making the dough and letting it rise does take some time. I used this Batali pizza dough recipe, except I accidentally put one cup of water. I realized this before I put the wine, so I opted out of not using wine since I didn't want to make anymore dough than what the recipe called for. I was also too lazy to adjust the measurements of everything else. This dough recipe is enough for two 10" pizzas, so I actually still have another batch of dough left. Next time I need to make more, I'll definitely have to use wine to see how it enhances the taste.

I was a little lazy to make homemade marinara sauce, but since I don't like my pizza really saucy, I just spread a couple of tablespoons of canned tomato sauce on the dough. The next layer was fresh mozzarella that I sliced, then topped with fresh basil which I'm now growing myself. I baked it for about 13 minutes at 400 Fahrenheit. Overall, the pizza turned out decent. I could've kneaded the dough more to make it thinner, and I definitely could have used more fresh mozzarella and basil. My dad really liked the dough/crust though, so at least I have that down now. I'll just have to see how much of a positive difference wine makes.

Yesterday, I used the other half of the dough. I didn't have enough fresh mozzarella left to make a full pizza, but since there's always a steady supply of different cheeses in my house, I picked aged gouda. My crust turned out better this time because I flattened it out a bit more on the pizza pan. Overall, this pizza turned out better. The only thing is that I sprinkled a little bit of salt before baking it which ended up being totally unnecessary since the aged gouda was pretty salty.

I'm glad I now have pizza completely from scratch under my belt. Not that it's difficult, but at least it's a little better and more fun than getting delivery.

Some homecooked meals

Now that I'm home and unemployed in Chicago, living in a house with a nice and newly renovated kitchen, I've been pretty inspired to cook and experiment a bit. Whether on my own or as my dad's sous chef (my dad is the cook in this house), I've built up my repertoire more in the last week than I did in my last 3 months in New York.

The surprising thing about Chicago is that you can find cheaper and fresher fish here than you can in New York. Maybe my mom just knows where to look here and I don't know where to look in New York, but we've been getting lots of very fresh halibut and Chilean sea bass for about $10/lb more or less.


This is some halibut I made last week. I made about 2 pounds worth for dinner. As you know, I don't like measuring stuff when I cook. I kinda just go with it. Ingredients included maybe 4-5 cloves of garlic, tomatoes, shallots, about 3/4-1 cup of white wine, salt and pepper for seasoning, and fresh basil to garnish at the end. Oh, I also added a few threads of saffron from a little jar I had bought in Corfu last year. I added this while the white wine was reducing. Just a few threads REALLY made the saffron taste noticeable. Overall, the fish was pretty good though maybe could have used more salt and pepper.


Another day, my dad and I cooked fresh scallops in a similar manner, but added a bunch of oyster mushrooms. Instead of using white wine, we used red. The flavor was really good, but my dad definitely overcooked the scallops - they ended up being a bit rubbery, which I hate, but since it tasted good, I was able to deal. I wasn't sure if the oyster mushrooms would be good with the scallops, but they actually were!

He and I have made other seafood dishes in the last week, but they're really all pretty similar. It's pretty much always either red or white wine reduction, tomatoes, shallots, sometimes green onions, sometimes either oyster or enoki mushrooms, and always always always some garlic.

My sister is having a graduation party this coming Saturday, so I'm hoping to experiment with other party-appropriate dishes for that too...

Stay tuned!

More Ramps!

I sauteed the remaining ramps that I had bought last Wednesday because they were already so unfresh and close to soggy today. That probably contributed to the lack of taste. Oh well. I separated the bulbs from the leaves and cooked everything in a bit of olive oil and garlic. The raw ramps didn't smell like anything today, so that's probably associated with the fact that there wasn't too much taste in the bite. However, I have really bad breath right now, and I'm pretty sure it's not just from the garlic. I may take another trip to the Greenmarket this week. Hopefully there will still be some ramps left. If there are, I'll probably buy another bunch and try the eggs&ramps, potatoes&ramps, or simply sautee them in olive oil and garlic again.

Ramps!

I honestly had never heard of ramps before until Gabe half-jokingly told me to go look for some. All of a sudden, it's all over food blogs, food news sites, Chowhound, seasonal menus, etc. So I was pretty intrigued as to what this unappetizingly-looking vegetable would taste like. Do note that ramps are only in season for a mere 1-2 months during mid-late spring (aka now). It's unfortunately quite fleeting. Another interesting fact is that Chicago, my hometown, is named after ramps due to its strong smell. From the sounds of it, local and notable chefs in Chicago make a big deal out of ramps. There's even a Rampfest every year, which for whatever reason, I find amusing. When I described this wild leek to my dad, he said that we actually have them in our backyard!

Anyways, I finally picked up a bunch of ramps for $3 at the Union Square Greenmarket last Wednesday. The lady selling them was offering 2 for 1 for the less fresh ones (meant to be cooked that night), but since we weren't planning on cooking them until last night or tomorrow (Sunday), I asked for the freshest ones. Let me tell you, ramps smell so strong. It has this onion-y, scallion-y, garlicky thing going on. I was honestly embarrassed to carry the bag around Barnes&Noble in fear that it would bother fellow browsers.

After looking up a bunch of recipes online, we settled with Batali's Spaghetti with Ramps recipe since it was simple enough. Even though neither Gabe nor I had ever tried ramps before, he thought that maybe the pasta would be good with guanciale. After coming across this recipe, his assumption was correct. So spaghetti with ramps and guanciale it was. As I've said before, I don't really follow recipes or measurements to a tee, so Gabe and I pretty much just went with the flow and did everything to taste. We probably used 1/3 of the bunch I had bought and 1/2 pound of guanciale.

In brief, I cooked the guanciale until the fat was rendered, removed the pieces from the pan and let them sit on some paper towels. Then, we cooked the ramps (bulbs separated from leaves, but you eat everything) in olive oil, red chili pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. We then mixed everything with approximately half a box of spaghetti, and topped it with bread crumbs. I think we used way too much guanciale this time. It would've been fine with 1/4 pound. We both felt pretty nasty after since it's so fatty, but hey, at least it tasted good. And we also should've used at least double the amount of ramps. We didn't realize how much the ramps would shrink when cooked. But overall, the pasta tasted better than I thought it would.



We accompanied our meal with a nice bottle of a 2006 Lilla, Montepulciano d'Abruzzo. It's a light, everyday wine that you could drink with almost anything. It's easy to drink and not dry at all.

Since we still have a bunch of ramps left, I'll have to find another way to cook them. Maybe we'll try the eggs or simply sautee them in olive oil and garlic.

Mussels Mariniere

For one of our nights in Chicago, we just decided to cook at my house. We made that pasta which I wrote about in one of my earlier posts which you can find under the "recipes" tag. People said that it was better than the last time I made it, so that's good! Gabe and I made mussels mariniere which we've made in the past. It's seriously one of the easiest things to make.

My mom bought 5 pounds of live mussels at Costco. We didn't really do any measurements, but here's what we did:

1. Heat 4tbs of butter in a large saucepan
2. Add a bunch of minced garlic (maybe 6-8 cloves worth?)
3. Add a bunch of chopped shallots (maybe 1-2 hands full?)
4. Add about 2 cups of dry white wine (we may have added more than that)
5. Once the alcohol is cooked off, add the mussels, and cover the pan
6. Mix once in awhile so all the mussels are getting some sauce and heat
7. It's finished once the shells are all open (this should only take 5 minutes or so)!
8. Add chopped fresh parsley to garnish

This was definitely a big hit with my family/relatives. 5 pounds of mussels only cost $9 at Costco. Mussels are so cheap, so this is something I have to make more often. If only we had some frites to go with it.

chinese sausage fried rice

Since my dad (or my brother) always make chinese sausage fried rice, I figured it was time to make it for myself. Not to mention, the hole in the wall Chinese place next to Gabe's apt makes pretty decent Chinese sausage fried rice.

I started by cooking the garlic in sesame oil, then added 2 Chinese sausages (cut into pieces) after a few minutes. I next added some day old white rice and bean sprouts. Finally, I cracked an egg in there, let it cook until about halfway (sort of just on one side of the pan, away from the rest of the stuff). When it was about halfway cooked, I mixed it in with everything else, so there would be tiny pieces of egg mixed in, like how fried rice usually is.

Overall, it wasn't bad, but I should have used 2, maybe even 3, times the amount of garlic that I did.

chocolate kahlua cake

I made this on Christmas Eve in order to bring to my aunt's house for our Christmas Day party, but since she said that they already had too many desserts, I saved it for our New Year's party. The great thing about cakes baked with liquor is the fact that it keeps it moist and preserves it for a very long time. Last year, I made coconut rum cake for New Year's, and it was a big hit, so since my house has like 5 bottles of Kahlua (coffee liquor), I decided to try chocolate Kahlua cake this year.

In a mixing bowl, I added one box of Pillsbury chocolate cake mix, one box of Jello chocolate pudding powder, 4 eggs, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, 1 cup of Kahlua, 1/2 cup of water, and 1 cup of sour cream. Most recipes I saw called for 3/4cup or less of Kahlua, but like I've said, my Dad and I tend to put more alcohol than needed. The sour cream probably sounds gross, but you don't taste it at all. It's just there to make the cake really moist, so maybe you can substitute with plain yogurt.

For the glaze, we heated and mixed 1 cup of sugar, 4oz Kahlua, and some Amaretto (almond liquor). I decided to throw in Amaretto because people often use amaretto flavoring/syrup in their coffee. That was a nice addition, but I think I'll put even more of that next time and/or use that instead of Kahlua for the glaze.

This turned out to be a great bundt cake. My cousin, Odette, loved it a lot as did others. Personally, I think the cake tasted a little more alcoholic than what I wanted, so I'll put less Kahlua in the cake mix next time.

scialatielli ai gamberetti

This is perhaps one of my most successful attempts in the kitchen. Especially when I'm home in Chicago with my family, I never follow a recipe completely because sometimes I think it's annoying to measure everything and to keep looking at the recipe after every step. Plus, cooking is all about experimenting with what works for you and what doesn't!

I followed this recipe. Mario Batali is perhaps my favorite chef. I made some changes/modifications to this recipe. First of all, I didn't make my own pasta noodles because that's too much unnecessary work. I also didn't make basic marinara sauce prior.

1. Heated MORE than 6tbs of olive oil and 6 cloves of garlic (minced) in a wok. (My dad, who helped me cook this, likes to put a lot of olive oil in anything)
2. Added shallots (not in recipe, but we like shallots) and zucchini pieces. (I should've bought a bigger zucchini)
3. Added a lot of red chili flakes. (Recipe called for 1tsp, but we definitely added way more than that...pasta ended up being spicier than what Batali probably wanted, but it was spicy in a good way)
4. Added MORE than 1 cup of dry white wine (Recipe called for 1 cup, but my dad and I like to go overboard with alcohol when cooking haha)
5. Added 2 cans (28oz) of diced tomatoes. Added regular medium shrimp (about 1lb uncooked. I couldn't find rock shrimp at the grocery).

NOTE: So this is where I sort of messed up. Since I didn't make the basic tomato sauce prior to everything else, the sauce ended up being extremely soupy in the wok, so I had to keep it going on the stove for like half an hour until it reduced to about half of what it was upon adding the tomatoes.

6. During this reduction time, I added salt and pepper to taste, a tiny bit more red chili flakes, and probably a couple of tablespoons of SUGAR (Not in the recipe, but that was a good call by my Dad. It balanced the spiciness from the chili flakes).
7. When it reduced to a thicker and grainier texture, that's when it was time to finally add the spaghetti (used one box).
8. Chopped up a whole bunch of fresh parsley (i'm sure this ended up being at least a whole cup instead of 1/4cup) and mixed it in.

Using that much parsley really added a ton of GOOD flavor. I need to use more fresh parsley in my pasta from now on.

We made this when two of my cousins, aunt, and uncle came over for dinner a couple of days befor Christmas. Because of all the red and green in the pasta, it was good timing too haha. Everyone loved it, so I definitely have to make this pasta again.