LaStage - Michelin star in Amsterdam

We lucked out when we were in Amsterdam this past September - we were able to get a last minute table at Michelin-starred LaStage, Chef Rogier Van Dam.  There is an abundance of Michelin-starred restaurants in Amsterdam but we chose this one because it's got good reviews, offered a three course option (which is all we could take in the evening), just a 20 minute walk from our BnB, fit in with our schedule and is reasonably priced.  

There were only a total of 12 courses on the menu, two in each category and guests can pick any combination to make up their dinner ranging from 3 to 8 courses.  Interestingly, the couple sitting beside us started off ordering a 5 course menu but half way through, they had to ask to "downsize".  The wait staff had a friendly discussion with them over which courses it made sense to remove and it was done without any fuss, which is a reflection of the excellent service at this restaurant with an unassuming front.  There were no "airs".

On top of the 3 courses we ordered, there were 3 amuse bouches - two before and one after!  Overall, the meal was tasty, well-prepared and definitely a restaurant I would return to next time I'm in Amsterdam.

Amuse-bouche 1 - piperada with pepper, onions and tomatoes, pork beef sausage and yummy hazelnuts coated with curry

Amuse-bouche 2 - smoked mackerel with a touch of sake!  exquisite taste!  served with "gomesco" (almonds, green pepper, green peas)

Turbot fillet - perfectly done with

with seaweed, saffran risotto, terrine of pork cheeks and langoustine sauce

Tomato bouillon

with pata negra, burrata di bufala and tomato - great combination

Never thought we would order American steak in Amsterdam but it was delicious - rare with foie gras foam

(with celeriac, artichoke in bacon, chard)

Pan fried perch - with crunchy skin, green peas creamed, with bits of smoked mackerel, hazelnuts and beet - only negative was the hollandaise sauce which was a bit salty

Amuse bouche 3 - tambouche with white chocolate and cherry preserve

Raspberry and pear

with white chocolate fudge, lemon verbena, liquerice, macadamia and raspberry sorbet

Speculaas soufflé (light and crunchy!)

with tangerine, egg nog and caramel icecream

Soy Sauce Chicken

I was utterly surprised by the popularity of the post on how to make "white-cut chicken" (June 23, 2013), a very basic but ever popular dish in Chinese cooking.  In the three years that the post was up, it has had 3,481 page views, almost ten times the average for this blog (364).  So I turned my thoughts to the other basic chicken dish - soy sauce chicken, done with very similar technique except with soy sauce.

The key to a good soy sauce chicken is obviously the soy sauce.  Get a good quality naturally fermented soy.  I use the 美味棧古法頭抽, available in larger Chinese supermarkets (in Toronto) but other brands of quality will work too. Thanks to my dear friend MC for introducing me to this brand and to the Rose Wine which truly enhanced the taste of this chicken.   MC's ratio of soy sauce was 3 tablespoons of premium soy, 3 tablespoons of dark soy (also get a quality dark soy) 3 tablespoons of Rose wine, 2-3 tablespoons of rock sugar.  This small amount of liquid is barely enough to cover half the chicken and will only work if you have a heavy cast iron pot like a medium sized Le Creuset pot that will hold the chicken snugly and retain heat even after the stove is off.  MC used a specially made heavy cooker but any heavy heat retaining pot should work.  I have gradually changed the recipe as I accumulated the sauce each time. Here's how I did it.

Ingredients: rose wine, premium soy, dark soy, rock sugar

Use the so-called "butter free-range chicken" available in Chinese groceries.  First time, use the basic recipe of 3 tablespoons each of the three liquids - soy, dark soy and rose wine plus 3 lumps of rock sugar.  Add lots of fresh ginger pieces and green onion.  Bring liquid to a boil in a heavy enamelled cast iron pot and quickly immerse chicken, breast side down.  Cover pot.

When the liquid boils again, turn off the heat. Cover pot.  Leave chicken in pot for 15 - 20 minutes (depending on size of chicken) then flip to the other side, bringing liquid to a boil again then turn off heat.

Because of the heat retention properties of the enamelled cast iron pot, the liquid would still be very hot even after the stove is turned off.  Leave chicken in pot for another 15 minutes.  At the end of the 15 minutes, bring liquid to a boil again and use a ladle to pour hot liquid over the parts of the chicken that were not fully immersed for a few more minutes.  Remove chicken from pot and let cool before applying sesame oil to the skin.  Then cut into serving pieces.  I like to put mine on the dish with the chicken pieces lined up.

Keeping the sauce for the next time -
After removing the chicken, bring the liquid to a boil again then let it cool.  I keep the liquid in the freezer and reuse it for the next soy sauce chicken.  Every time I add the 3 tablespoons of each of the liquid in the recipe and adjust the rock sugar as needed.  After cooking a couple of chickens, there should be enough liquid to cover at least half the chicken and there will no longer be a need to ladle hot liquid over the chicken, which makes the recipe even easier.  I sometimes add a couple of shelled hard-boiled eggs to the liquid with the chicken.  This will produce tasty soy sauce eggs without any extra effort.

New American Style Restaurant Experience

We tried a new restaurant Eden Hill (http://www.edenhillrestaurant.com/#about) last night. It got good reviews from Seattle Times, and excellent Google reviews – with one reviewer saying that it is somewhat fru-fru. It is true; but the food was totally worth it. We are considering their ten course texture chef menu coming up in a couple weeks.  

We opted for the blind chef 5-course tasting menu. The server asked us to trust the chef if we told him what we wouldn’t eat. I said rabbit (too cute to eat), and forgot to say lamb (also too cute) – more on that later. The pre-first-course (i.e. it didn’t count as one of the 5 courses) were two oysters in the half shell with champagne vinaigrette, decorated with edible petals from the local farmer’s market.

The first course was fresh tomatoes salad; the “cute” presentation included a fake egg-yolk. It looked like a yolk but was filled with tomato puree (or juice), enclosed in a skin just like a real egg yolk; and when I pierced it the inside ran out just like a real egg yolk. Since I forgot to turn my recorder on I don’t remember how it was done – maybe some sort of molecular gastronomy. In the picture the “yolk” is sitting under the shaved radish. And it was very tasty – excellently done. It came with a piece of bread to soak up all the juices.

Next was a shrimp and veggie dish. The baby potatoes were sauced with fermented cider vinegar and escolar pepper vinegar. The black olive-looking orbs were the height of fru-fru-ness – they were cucumbers compressed with olive oil and tossed with sweet vinegar. The base had wine chili oil and tarragon aioli, with grilled local shrimp, topped with a sorrel leaf for the acidity.

Then it was halibut cheek, with little “black” currents (which were red in color), fried peppers, grilled sun chokes, agar based brown-butter-anchovy-caramel sauce (I think something like that), and topped with pea sprouts and edible flowers. Very yummy halibut cheeks!

This was followed by lamb chops, which I hadn’t had in years since I swore off eating cute animals.  It came with halved grilled sweet cherries, roasted red onion, first-of-the-season baby button chanterelles, sprouts, and lovage sauce. And I remembered how I used to love lamb chops. (Of course Steve would order lamb when he was eating out without me present).

The palate cleanser was a half ball of peach jelly, that tasted like fresh peach.

The dessert was rose and wild berry ice cream, with saffron caramel, sesame seed crumbles, brown butter sponge cake, with an edible gold leaf. I have never had gold leaf but I don’t think it tasted like much. But the rest was great.

So quite an experience - and every dish was exceptional! And one of the best meals we’ve had for a long time – with all the ingredients locally sourced and artistically arranged. If we decide to go for the texture tasting menu I will certainly blog about it also.

Here are a couple pictures of the restaurant (non-food) related - it is a 16-seat restaurant, plus about a dozen bar seatings.

Okra tastes even better with a sauce

It took me a while to realize that okra tastes better with a liquidy sauce - but of course!  With its penne-like cavity, it's the perfect vegetable to go with a sauce that would squirt on your palette when you bit into the okra.  My favourite sauce is curry with coconut milk and tomatoes.  

Cut up your vegetables.  In this case, I used okra, egg plant, zucchini, red pepper, onion and tomatoes.  Slice the okra ~1.5 inch long at an angle.  Do the same with the other vegetables.  Add curry to hot oil in a pan and get ready for the burst of flavour from the heat.  Quickly add chopped onions.   Then add the other vegetables and a cup of broth.  After simmering for 5 minutes, add coconut milk and cook for another 5 minutes or until vegetables are soft.  Add salt or soy sauce to taste.


 


Another sauce I like is tomato sauce with herbs.  In this case, I used okra, green/red pepper, celery and onion.  Again heat oil in pan, add onions then the other vegetables except tomatoes.  Transfer to a cast iron pot.  Heat more oil in pan, add tomatoes, when it's almost soft, add half a can of tomato paste and a cup of broth.  Add herbes de provence (mix of savory, marjoram, rosemary, thyme, oregano) then pour the sauce onto the vegetables in the pot.  Simmer for 10 - 15 minutes and you've got a tasty vegetable stew with the okra soaking up the tomato sauce and the celery adding the crunch!  

Dim Sum Sunday at Hakkasan London

Mr. A’s friends, A&M, sent him food pictures from London.  The two travelers had the “Dim Sum Sunday” at Hakkasan.

The meal started with a cocktail.  A bottle of Louis Roederer Brut Premier NV Champagne was served with food.  The first course was a crispy duck salad:

which was followed by steamed dim sum -- har gau (shrimp dumpling), shumai (pork dumpling) with scallop and fish roe on top, Chinese chive dumpling (the green ones), duck and yam bean dumpling (the orange ones):

and baked dim sum – (from left to right) golden radish crab meat pastry, smoked duck and pumpkin puff, royal king crab and truffle roll, baked venison puff:

Three main dishes - (clockwise from top) XO seafood and water chestnut lettuce wrap, asparagus, stir-fry black pepper rib eye beef with merlot – were accompanied by ginger and spring onion fried rice:

The meal ended with a selection of dessert and an after dinner cocktail.

All for £58 per person, which was surprisingly reasonable for a high-end London restaurant. 

Creative Vegetarian

In my continued attempt to increase the vegetarian portion of my diet, I have been very inventive with my dishes - basically creating a dish out of anything and everything I have available at home.  Our typical meals have been one meat and one veggie dish.  Now I'm trying to make it 2 veggie dishes and one meat with a smaller portion of meat. 

Last week, I created two "new" dishes by combining ingredients that I have never put together before.  The first one - simple roasted red peppers and kale stir fry, nothing exciting but definitely tasted better than plain kale.  

The second - okra, red pepper, king mushrooms, egg tofu - all cubed, stir fried with half a teaspoon of chili bean paste to spice it up, was a success.  I love the combination of flavours, textures and colours.  The slightly chewy king mushroom went well with the crunchy okra and the soft but firm tofu.  In both dishes, the red pepper added sweet flavour and crisp texture, in addition to colour.  Next time, I might add some dried shitake to enhance the flavour even more, but it takes pre-planning to do dried shitake, since they usually require soaking for a few hours at least.  Fresh shitake isn't as flavourful.

Okra, king mushroom, red pepper and egg tofu stir fry

Kale and red pepper

It's amazing how a bit of red added to the colour of the dishes.  Compare these to the one below, which I did a while back.  This is a stir fry of brown beech mushrooms, enoki, tofu and lotus root - tasty, great textures, but dull-looking.  More greens would have brought up the colour and made the dish more enticing - something to remember for next time.

Brown beech mushrooms, enoki, tofu and lotus root with green onions.

I'm also slowly trying to increase my inventory of vegetarian dishes by exploring "new" ingredients - new to me at least.  More later.

Food experience in Costa Rica

The highlight of our Costa Rican food experience was really the freshness and tastiness of the fruits that seemed to be abundant everywhere we went.  The last time I had a mango as sweet was in Vietnam, and it was not nearly as big as this one, which we bought from a fruit stand on the way back to San Jose from the Pacific coast.  It's not so much just the sweetness as the fragrance of the mango that penetrated the senses and left an indelible stamp on my mental palette.

We also tried something we haven't had before - the camito, or star apple, as you can see from the image below.  It's sweet although the texture is more persimmon than apple.

Our first meal was in downtown San Jose, in a 100 year house turned into a cafe restaurant called Chelles. It was recommended as a local food place by the hotel front desk staff and it was within walking distance.  We got our dinner in spite of language barriers and it was a really good deal, our plates heaped with food enough for two meals.  It was plain grilled beef and chicken with fries and a salad plus the wait staff put a bottle of what looked like pickled chopped vegetables in front of us.  We subsequently found out from our guide that this kind of chopped vegetables is very common in Costa Rica.  Since it was our first day in the country, we didn't eat anything uncooked - very good advice that we had learned from our guide in Peru several years ago.  We have to let our system get used to the local water before we start eating raw vegetables - makes perfect sense to me.

Pickled chopped vegetables

We stopped for lunch in a small town on the way to Arenal.  We followed our guide to a "soda", a typical Costa Rican eatery where they serve "casado", a set lunch Costa Rican style.  I ordered a highly recommended "Olle de Carne" - a beef stew with cassava yams, taro, squash and rice (they only had two left!).  I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture before the meal.  But it was delicious!

Seafood was excellent everywhere we went, not surprising given that the country has access to both the Pacific and the Caribbean.  I had "sea bass" many times in the eleven days that I was in the country and it was certainly not the same kind we had in North America or Europe.  I suspect from the thickness of the cut that it is Chilean sea bass - and not at the exorbitant price that we would have been charged had we been in North America.

"Sea bass"

At our last stop in Manuel Antonio, we had a taste of tapas at Lush Tapas & Lounge recommended by our guide.  We sipped our drinks in the open air restaurant atop the hill overlooking the Pacific as everything around us caught the glow from the sunset - what a great way to end our trip.

Chicken and mango tapas/mini tenderloin in red wine with roasted tomatoes

Heartwarming pumpkin soup

I recently brought some pumpkin soup to a friend who was recuperating from surgery at home and got such a rave review for it that I decided to share this with a broader audience.  It's the perfect antidote to winter - I've found that a cup at lunch really warms you through and through.  I think the thick, creamy texture of the pumpkin and the spices all played a role in creating that warm snug feeling. And the wonderful thing is pumpkin is incredibly rich in antioxidants, high in Vitamin A, an excellent source of potassium, and what's more, low in calories.

On top of all the goodness, it's easy to make, especially  if you have a hand-held blender.  The cooking time is an hour and a half but the actual prep time is at most 20 minutes.   Like all good researchers, I used a mix of sources but I would say the basic recipe I used was from taste.com taking great liberty with it.  The soup is so creamy there is no need to add cream or any added starch.  It's a very healthy soup.

This is also a great time of year to make it because pumpkin is cheap after Halloween.  You'll need about 5 pounds or 3 large pieces (it's okay if you use less, it will just be a little more watery). Pumpkin with deep orange flesh tends to be sweeter.  Rub olive oil, rosemary and black pepper on the pumpkin flesh and place skin side up on a roasting pan.  Roast at 350 degrees for about an hour.   When it is ready, sauté two chopped onions and several cloves of garlic in olive oil in a heavy pot until soft.  Add 8 cups of vegetable or chicken stock, 1 tbsp of ground coriander, dash of chilli and simmer for about 20 minutes with the de-skinned roasted pumpkin cut up into large chunks.  Set it aside to cool for about half an hour.  Put your blender into the soup and blend the pumpkin pieces right in the pot.  It only takes a couple of minutes and it's done.

Serve with parsley or a dob of yogurt in the centre.  Great for a first course at a winter dinner.  It tastes best when piping hot.  I once served it at a dinner when it had not been heated through and through, and I regret it with every spoonful that I tasted.  It lost much of its "bang" when it's lukewarm.

Just aim the blender straight down at the chunks and it won't splatter.

If you don't have a hand-blender, go and get one.  I wish I hadn't waited 10 years to get mine.  It is SO handy - you won't regret it. 

Steamed eggs

Thanks to my dear friend MC, I was able to make a three egg combo for lunch today.  I haven't had steamed eggs for a meal for the longest time so this is a real treat.  What started it was the gift of homemade salted eggs from my friend.  She did a really good job - I've never seen such an outstanding salted duck egg.  Take a look at the firm egg yolk below - and the white was not too salty, as commercial ones tend to be.

  

While a three egg combo used to be quite common in Chinese homes, it is becoming increasingly rare because of concerns about cholesterol.   Although let's face it, three or four eggs shared among a few people is really minimal, well within most people's cholesterol allowance.   For people who have never prepared this before, here are a few quick pointers.

Cut up the salted egg yolk so you can spread it around later in the dish

Whisk together three regular eggs.  Add the salted egg and a ladle of soup stock.  Add a "thousand year old egg"(皮疍), chopped up (available in Chinese stores but it is an acquired taste, so skip if you are not a fan)

Traditionally, minced pork was used as a base for steamed egg.  But in the interest of health and not adding to the cholesterol, I just used whatever I have at home.  In this case, a few King mushrooms, also chopped up.  Enoki mushrooms cut up is also good.

Put the mushrooms at the bottom of a metal dish (better heat conduction).  Pour egg mixture into the dish.  Distribute the "black egg" and the salted egg yolk evenly around the dish.  Meanwhile, heat a pot of water to boiling then put the dish on a steamer rack in the pot.  Turn heat down immediately to just warm.  If you are using an electric stove that remains hot for a long time, you may have to turn down the heat before you put the dish in.  If the water continues to boil, the egg mixture would have a lot of bubbles and texture would not be smooth.  Some bubbles around the edges are sometimes unavoidable and don't affect the texture. It takes about 10-15 minutes for the eggs to set over low heat.  

The white of the salted egg is clearly visible here - this is my favourite part.  To ensure a more even distribution of the egg whites, whisk the egg mixture thoroughly.  For those of you who don't have friends who'd give you homemade salted eggs, they are available in Chinese groceries.

A meatless lunch (with quinoa and black beans, spinach)

                                                     

Heceta Head Lighthouse B&B

In early September we stayed for 2 nights at the Heceta Head Lighthouse B&B on the Oregon coast. Aside from its fame as a haunted house (didn't know about that when I booked), it is also famous for its 7 course locally-sourced breakfast. The B&B and the lighthouse were restored not too many years ago, unfortunately because of the large number of visitors, the lighthouse showed some chalky residue during the last inspection and the lighthouse upstairs was closed to the public. The B&B overlooks the beach with easy access to the lighthouse.

View from the LightKeeper's room of the B&B, which is the left window on the second story.

Breakfast started at 8:30 in the morning. As all the rooms were full, there were 6 rooms and 12 guests for breakfast. The chef was setting the table.

The chef ringing the bell for food!

A very moist family recipe orange cake was passed around the table, both days. It was excellent!

Watermelon with rose water and herbs for day 1, Fruit Combo with cream for day 2.

Salmon for bagels, with local preserves and cream cheese for day 1, whipped cream cheese with choice of crackers for day 2.

 Strawberry based palate cleanser and clotted cream, and mango based palate cleanser (don't remember what the other ingredients were, but the mango was particularly good)

Puff pastry omelette with local sausages, and vegetable frittata with clotted cream and sausages. There was a big pile of sausages for passing around, but everybody was getting full at this point. Incidentally the frittata had several bites eaten before I remembered to take the picture (Ooops!)

Coffee cake with berry filling, blintz with cheese filling and berry preserve,

Apple and local cheese, the cheese was siltcoos, an award winning artisan goat cheese from Oregon.

Watched the sunrise from Heceta beach.

The view of the lighthouse lenses at eye-level from the outside.

For more info on the lighthouse, see Friends of Heceta Head Lighthouse. In conclusion this was certainly a unique experience to learn about the history, operation, and life of the lighthouse and its inhabitants from bygone era, not to mention the antique-filled bed and breakfast inn with its resident ghost!