R&D Kitchen

First I want to say, I like the improvements made to the blogger iPhone app. It looks much nicer and it easier to use. I don't like how you can't change the date posted or the location, you can only use the current location.

Anyways, my mom and I went to R&D Kitchen in Newport Beach, CA last week. It wasn't too busy for lunch on a weekday, we waited about 10-15 minutes for our table.

We ordered:

The fish of the day - a white flakey fish fried in butter, served with cole slaw. I forgot if there was another little side or not. But the fish was delicious.

French dip - the bread was soft and the meat was yummy. But the horseradish sauce needed more kick. I couldn't really taste it even though I was dousing my sandwich in the stuff.

Carrot cake - huge slice of cake. My mom and I could only eat half after all the food we had before. It has walnuts in it which give it a nice crunch. The frosting is decent, it doesn't taste like plastic but it wasn't amazing either.

I wish I had remembered to take more pcs. But I only got one of the cake.

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Japanese Curry Rice

 

Made this curry for lunch today. I typically use the instant curry bars, but we didn't have any on hand. Rather than making a trip to the store I decided to make the curry from scratch considering I had all the ingredients available. I followed a recipe I found here. I substituted curry powder for garam masala and added 1.5 tsp of  cayenne pepper because I like my curry nice and spicy. Whenever I've made curry at home I've had a hard time getting it to the right spice level but this time I was very satisfied with the results. If you like to watch videos, there's also a video of how to make the curry rice on the same site.

Hearth Bread

 

Got this recipe from the back of a flour bag. Not too bad tasting.

Ingredients:

3 1/3 cups bread flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt
1 1/4 teaspoons yeast
1 1/3 cups water
1 teaspoon honey

Directions:

1 . In a medium bowl, stir together flours, salt and yeast. Stir in water and honey. Knead dough until smooth and springy, but still slightly sticky. Add a little flour or water as necessary.
2 . Lightly brush oil inside of large bowl. Place dough in bowl, turning to oil all sides. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour or until doubled in size.
3 . Line cookie sheet with cooking parchment paper or lightly sprinkle with cornmeal. Gently push fist into dough to deflate. Shape dough into a round ball. Place on cookie sheet, cover with oiled plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place about 45 minutes.
4 . Place baking stone on lowest oven rack and heat oven to 475°F Carefully cut an X-shaped slash on top of dough; spray with cool water. Place cookie sheet in oven on baking stone; place one cup water in a shallow pan on the other rack.
5 . Bake 10 minutes; reduce oven temperature to 425°F Bake an additional 15-20 minutes or until bread is golden brown and skewer inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely on a cooling rack.
6. NOTE: Stir-ins can include: 1/4 cup of 1 or 2 of the following--Kalamata olives, roasted garlic cloves, cut-up sun-dried tomatoes, slice chives, shelled sunflower seeds, 1 teaspoon fresh or 1/2 teaspoon dried herbs such as rosemary or thyme.

Recipe Copyright?

I've been wanting to post the recipes for the food I make for some time. But I didn't know if it was legal or not. I've done a little bit of research now. I think the issue is best summed up in this site. But basically the author says the ingredients are NOT under copyright protection. It should be okay to post a recipe as long as the directions are rewritten and not posted verbatim. Also, linking to the original source and giving credit is a good idea. So I have decided that this is what I am going to do.

Grilled Pork with Grape and Arugula Salad

 

I got this recipe from Great Easy Meals by Food Network Magazine. This is an awesome book I use a lot to make food for my family. Most of the meals can be finished relatively quickly and this is one of them. It took me about 35-45 minutes from start to finish. Maybe it doesn't seem like that fast, but compared to food that takes 4-5 hours, like my failed ravioli attempt, 35-45 minutes is pretty quick. 

Grilled Pork with Arugula and Grape Salad

adapted from Great Easy Meals

1 medium shallot

2 tbs. balsamic vinegar

2 tsp. chopped fresh thyme

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

4 5-oz boneless pork chops (I like to use thin cut)

3/4 cup red seedless grapes, halved

4 cups baby arugula

1/2 cup gorgonzola cheese

1. Mix together the shallot, vinegar, 1 tsp thyme, 1 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp black pepper in a small bowl. Slowly whisk in the olive oil.
2. Put the pork chops in a bowl. Add 1 tsp thyme and 3 tbs of the dressing. Use your hands to coat the pork with the marinade and let it sit for 5 minutes. Note: You can also season the pork chops with salt if you like before you marinade, but I don't because I think they are salty enough with just the marinade. I've made this recipe before where I have salted the chops and they come out too salty for my preference.
3. Heat the grill pan on medium-high. Grill the pork about 4-5 minutes per side so that it is cooked through. Plate the pork on individual small plates or on a single large plate depending on how you like to serve your meals.
4. In a large bowl, toss the grapes, arugula, and gorgonzola together. You can add the dressing to the salad but I like to serve it separate so my family can portion their dressing to their preferences.

cookingwithdog: Melon Pan

I've been wanting to try to bake melon pan for a while now. There's a bakery in my area that used to make really good melon pan, but they changed their recipe or something so it doesn't taste good anymore. This particular recipe was a big hit with my family but the cookie was not hard or sugary enough for me. It might be because of my family's unreliable oven. That's why the melon pan didn't brown on the top as nicely as it should have. Whenever I bake things in our oven they always come out pale even if they are fully cooked.

I got this recipe from the youtube channel cookingwithdog. It's a great channel that I really want to try out all the recipes from. You can also watch the original video here. Since the recipe is in video form, I transcribed the recipe so you can read it and follow along in the video. The process is time consuming and took me about 5 hours from start to finish.

Melon Pan
(5 pieces)

- Bread Dough -
140g Bread Flour (4.94 oz)
25g Sugar (0.882 oz)
1/3 tsp Salt
5g Non-Fat Dry Milk Powder (0.176 oz)
3g Instant Yeast (0.106 oz) - a little less than 1 tsp
1 tbsp Beaten Egg
70ml Warm Water (2.37 fl oz)
15g Butter (0.529 oz)
Bread Flour for dusting

- Cookie Dough -
25g Unsalted Butter (0.882 oz) Room Temp
35g Sugar (1.23 oz)
25g Beaten Egg (0.882 oz) Room Temp
80g Cake/Pastry Flour (2.82 oz)
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
Bread Flour for dusting

Directions

1.  Cookie dough: whisk butter in a bowl until creamy. Gradually add sugar and dissolve into butter. When the color turns white, slowly add the beaten egg. Do not add it all at once or the mixture will separate.
   
2. Add baking powder to cake flour and mix with a spatula. Sift the flour mixture into a bowl. Sift again into the bowl.
3. Add 1/3 of the cake flour mixture into the butter mixture. Mix with spatula. Repeat with the remaining cake flour mixture. Stir until all the flour is thoroughly mixed. Do not over mix the dough.
4. Place dough on cooking tray covered with plastic wrap. Flour your hands. Shape dough into cylinder. Wrap up the cylinder with the plastic wrap and cool in refrigerator for about 1 hour.
5. Bread dough: add sugar, salt, non-fat dry milk powder, and yeast to the flour. Mix well. Add the beaten egg to the warm water. Gradually pour into the flour and stir with the spatula until evenly mixed. Clean spatula with a pastry scraper and place flour mixture onto a pastry board.
6. Gather the crumbled flour mixture and form it into a ball. Briefly knead with hands. Throw dough onto board, fold it away, grab side of dough and throw again. Gather with scraper; knead dough with hands using body weight. Repeat process until dough is less sticky. Flatten dough and spread on the butter in the center of the dough. Grab outsides of dough towards center and knead in the butter. When the butter is mixed in, gather the dough with the scraper and form a dough ball. Continue to throw dough on board and knead. Repeat throwing and rolling process for 10 minutes. The dough should be smooth and glossy. Shape the dough into a ball and put in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit in a warm place (80F) for 40 minutes. Dough should rise by 50%.
7. Remove plastic wrap. Dip finger in flour then poke a hole in the dough. If the hole quickly disappears the dough needs more fermentation.
8. Weight the dough on a kitchen scale. Flatten dough to remove the gas inside. Roll the dough into a long cylinder. Divide dough into 5 pieces; make sure they are equal in weight. Shape into a ball. Line up balls on a cooking tray lightly dusted with flour. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature for 20 minutes.
9. Divide cookie dough into 5 equal pieces making sure they are equal in weight. Flour hands. Shape pieces into a ball. Place a 3.5 inch diameter drawing of a circle underneath a piece of plastic wrap to use as a guide. Place the cookie dough ball on top of the circle and cover with another piece of plastic wrap. It helps to lightly flour the plastic wraps on the sides touching the dough so the dough will be easy to remove from the wrap. Flatten the dough ball into a circle to match the guide. Lightly dust a cooking tray with flour and place the cookie dough circles on it. Cover with plastic wrap. Set in the fridge in order to make the cookie dough easier to work with.
10.  Shape bread dough into a ball. Cover with the cookie dough circle. Hold ball upside down to bring cookie sheet near to center. Pinch the center and dip the ball upside down into the sugar. I like to roll the top of my dough around in the sugar to make sure it’s nicely coated. Hold melon pan on palm of hand and make a diamond pattern on top with the scraper.
11. Put the melon pan on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Let melon pan sit in a warm place for second fermentation for 40 minutes at about 100F. Should double in volume.
12.   Preheat oven at 340F, bake for 12 minutes. Should be slightly brown on top, remove from oven. Place on cooling rack.

Melon pan before baking

Close up of melon pan before baking

Melon pan after baking

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