Chirashiventure

There is always one dish I use to gauge how certain restaurants run. Chirashi is always perfect because you get to see plating, freshness of ingredients, and flavor all in one bowl.  Ive had rushed chiraishi bowls with the sushi rice thrown in without any care and horrible knife skills are so apparent that you feel like you are eating scraps.  1. You can tell the restaurant is staffed and 2. You might not to know where and how the fish you are eating has been there.  This is especially important because you are eating it raw.  This dish was from hana sushi which is a small chain believe it or not.  I can confidently say this was the best chirashi bowl ive had in the san diego and temecula area.  The dish was beautiful and the sashimi cuts thick and luscious.  They even added in tamago or sweet egg which was one of my favorite types of nigiri when I was younger.  A little ponzu and wasabi this off and at 21 dollars I thuroughly enjoyed this dinner.

  

Chrashi Bowl from Hana Sushi

Mels Pregnancy Craving

The nice thing about working with your significant other especially when you are prego and he happens to be director of food service/executive chef is you get to crave something and boom!

Funny thing is that mel out of no where asks for a monte cristo in the middle of our lunch rush.  Well you know you gotta take care of the baby so of course I oblidged.  Check out the recipe below.

Monte Cristo

For sandwich

Sliced Roasted turkey 2oz

Sliced Black forest ham 2oz

Gruyere cheese 2 slices

Texas toast 2 slices

Raspberry preserves 1oz

Mayonnaise 1oz

Tempura Batter 4oz

Sugar .5cup

Water 1cup

For french toast batter

Whole eggs 2oz

Whole milk 2oz

Ground Cinnamon 2tbs

Ground Nutmeg tps

Combine all batter ingredients until well incorporated and set aside.  Pre heat griddle to medium high heat.  Take the Texas toast and generously dip into batter and straight to hot griddle.  Once you see some color flip and put a slice of gruyere cheese on each.  Finish cooking the french toast and melting the cheese at the same time.  Spread mayonnaise on on alice and raspbeerry preserves on the other.  Finish assembling the sandwich with the deli meats and take off the griddle.  Wait a minute to cool and tightly wrap the sandwich and refrigerate for 15 minutes so the sandwich doesent fall apart when frying.  Prepare tempura batter by combining water, sugar, and tempura mixture.  Take the sandwiches then dip in the batter and quickly fry in hot oil.  Dust with powdered sugar.

Its messy for sure but well worth all the effort so you dont always have to go to disney land for a monte cristo.  Works especially well if you are pregelnant according to the wife.  Much love and enjoy!

Ramped Up Ramen

Spicy Egg Drop Style Miso Ramen

So I know what you are thinking.  Another recipe to make top ramen.  Well what makes this different than all the other ones out there on the internet?  All I can say is please do your belly and taste buds a favor try this recipe yourself.

This has been a culmination of trial, error, and experience.  I feel I strike a diverse balance of robust but restrained flavor here. It hits a nice blend of different asian styles and ingredients that all compliment each other and creates very balanced flavor profiles, and yes it I just top ramen!  So now that I talked it up here is the recipe and I hope you all like it as much as I do.

2 packages top ramen

(I like 1 beef and 1 pork flavor)

2 whole eggs

2 tbs cornstarch

4 cups of water

1tbs red miso

1 tsp sesame oil

1tsp gochujang chili paste

1 package of roasted seaweed

1/2 cup of frozen peas, carrots, and corn kernels

In a soup pot put water and incorporate cornstarch while still cold.  Turn on heat to high and add seasoning packets from too ramen and bring to high rolling boil and broth starts to slightylly thicken.  In a small cup crack the eggs and scramble and slowley pour into the very hot boiling broth forming ribbons of egg.  After egg is cooked about 30 seconds place noodles in broth making sure to break noodles apart as it softens.  Add sesame oil, red miso, and frozen vegetables and stir.  When incoporated add gochujang before serving to avoid scorching the chile paste.  Pull noodle first in bowl or nest when plating so you have all your vegetables and egg visible and not covered by your noodles.  Finished with sliced roasted seaweed strips and enjoy friends.  The little man sure did!