Busy Nothings

I want to share a few pictures from my recent trip to Washington, D.C.  All food related posts will be posted separate from this sightseeing post.  This is not intended to be a travel diary-just a way to share some pictures and interesting facts. 

The first sight I saw was the Washington Monument.  Indeed, it is absolutely impossible to miss.  Won’t bore you with a picture of it but here’s a picture of the White House:

You can’t really see much from the street.  It would have been neat to see it from the inside but that just took too much planning ahead.  I would have needed to contacted my senator or representative about 6 months in advance and I didn’t have that kind of notice before I knew I was going on this trip. 

Next is a picture of me standing in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.  That was pretty neat to stand outside of it. 

Inside, however, was pretty much a disappointment.  No one could go into the chamber where oral argument occurs, although you could look inside it.  The exhibits were also sort of weak.  There was a heavy emphasis on Chief Justice John Marshall, who certainly put his mark on the Court and American politics.  He was the first one to spell out the power of the Court to declare Acts of Congress unconstitutional, that is, void because it conflicts with the supreme law of the land, the U.S. Constitution.  Anyway, even with that sort of history, there wasn’t much to see and as far as I could tell, there was no bust of the last Chief Justice Rhenquist.  Next are two pictures of the inside of the Library of Congress:

It’s really difficult to explain how grand it is inside.  Everything is decorated so fully and expensively that it’s impossible to really focus in on any one thing.  The two pictures are from two of the many halls in the building.  Sorry, I forget the specifics about each of them; I’m just trying to share the granduer of the place.  One interesting fact is that the Library houses an original Gutenberg Bible.  This is pretty significant since it is the first book ever produced using a printing press.  It was huge.  Unfortunately, I could not take a picture of it (musuem policy).  And it was made of vellum, which is animal hide made into a paper like substance.  Unbelieveable.  The next picture is the inside of the National Archives. 

It houses the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.  I apologize for the picture quality; by design the inside of the place is very dark.  I overheard one of the securtiy guards say that it was the equivalent of the light emanated from two candles.  The documents themselves were fun to look at but they were next to impossible to read.  They’re pretty much old and faded.  Plus, the lines leading up to it were insane.  I waited almost an hour to get to see them.  Next up is an appearance by Smoky the Bear:

I also made a trip to the National Aquarium:

Incidentially, that was a total waste of time.  It was one of the few attractions that you had to pay for and it was terrible.  Small and dingy with a disappointing amount of fish.  I spent about 15 mintues there and saw everything.  I then made a trip to the National Gallery of Art.  I won’t pretend that I know anything about art but I did recognize this piece:

I had no idea Rodin’s Thinker was there.  Pretty cool to see, even for an art idiot like me.  Of course, we also saw the U.S. Capitol:

That’s my sister Jessy who was kind enough to choose me to go along with her for the trip.  We also saw the World War II Memorial:

It was so impressive.  Somehow it made you feel small and proud all at the same time.  Small because I felt I could never match what the “greatest generation” did but proud because I know our country produced such an armed force of character.  It also made you feel enveloped by that generation when you walked inside of the memorial as if you were inseperably a part of what they did, which, is true in its own way.  In contrast was the Vietnam War Memorial:

I never got the same feeling of pride as I did in the World  War II Memorial.  Instead, since you can see your reflection in the monument itself, you are forced to confront the stark reality of war: people die and that is a terrible thing.  Somehow, this monument fits our country’s rather unusual feelings towards that war as if it was more about how we feel about the war is more important what the war really was.  The next picture is of my sister at the Lincoln Memorial:

As you can tell from the picture, it is a really large sculpture.  Very fitting for our greatest president, I think.  Lastly are a few pictures from the National Zoo.  What is significant about this zoo is not the number of animals because there really aren’t a huge number.  Instead, the exhibits are simply huge and the animals have room to roam around a bit, at least for the most part. 

You can see more pictures of my trip to Washington, D.C. here. 

Five Guys is a fast food hamburger joint with a number of locations in the D.C. area.  According to some signs on their wall, they have the best hamburgers in the area.  Interested, I had lunch there which looked like this:

The burger was two patties, both of which were about 5 ounces.  They were cooked well-done (you don’t have a choice) but were very-well seasoned and juicy.  They, I think, are served automtically with sauteed mushrooms, sauteed onions, American cheese, and mayonnaise.  It all worked beautifully together.  The beef was perfectly complemented by the earthiness of the mushrooms and the onions.  The cheese, of which kind I do not normally like, added a nice creaminess and flavor contrast to the burger.  And the mayonnaise was simply superb.  Thicker and more fully flavored than your ordinary grocery store brand, it brought all of the other flavors together while adding its own richness.  Very, very good burger.

The fries were almost as good.  They were freshly cut french fries cooked in a two-stage method.  I didn’t ask but I assumed that they cooked them first at a lower temperature and then finished them at a higher temperature.  They served them to me piping hot and perfectly seasoned.  However, they could have used a little more time in the fryer-I like my fries pretty crispy.  Nevertheless, they had a nice potato flavor that is lacking in most french fries.  You could really tell they came from a potato, which I think is a very good thing.   

From the sidewalk, this place looks like a dive.  Shabby exterior, hokey signs, and a sense that the exterior just isn’t that well looked after.  Yet, proudly displayed on a number of sandwich boards, are numerous newspaper reviews singing the praises of this little joint.  One can also see employees busy at work stretching noodles.  Intrigued, my sister Jessy and I adventured there for dinner. 

The inside of the restaurant is about the same as the outside,  a little dirty and a little bit scary.  In the menu is yet another restaurant review explaining how good the noodles and the pork buns are.  As I always want the best a restaurant has to offer, I order fried noodles with beef and an order of pork buns.  Jessy orders one of her favorite dishes, sesame chicken.  Here’s what the food looked like:

The pork buns were somehow absolutely addicting.  They are little bits of seasoned pork wrapped in a dense, yeast based dough and steamed.  Everything in it seemed, to me, a little bit unseasoned.  The dough seemed bland and the pork could have used a little bit of heat.  They definitely needed to be dipped in the soy and sesame oil sauce that came with it.  But, the dough was dense and chewy and showed just the slightest sign of gluten, all of which gave it a wonderful mouthfeel and some real character.  The pork, while seemingly small in volume compared to the amount of dough, provided just enough savoriness to balance the blandness of the dough.  I found that I couldn’t stop eating them and wanted another order.  Deconstructed they should not have been that delicious but they were.

The noodle dish, on the other hand, was a disappointment.  The noodles themselves were excellent.  They were slightly thick with a beautiful amount of “chew” and a slight (and pleasant) egg flavor.  They were superlatively satisfying.  Already I can think of them as comfort food.  But, the rest of the dish did not do them justice, perhaps because the dish was less than $5.  The beef in the dish was tough, stringy, and tasted more of fat than of beef.  It definitely came from a rather cheap cut.  The sauce was a seemingly simple soy sauce based concotion and after a few bites, it became uninteresting and even a little annoying because of the greasy feel of it in your mouth.  I couldn’t finish it.  Maybe I should have ordered the noodles in broth, which was the other bargain option with the noodles. 

Jessy’s dish, which she was kind enough to share, was great.  The chicken was very crispy and had a wonderful soy-based sauce with hints of citrus, sweetness, and sesame.  It was just wonderfully deep in flavor.  It was simply the best sesame chicken I ever had. 

Our last dinner in D.C. was at Teaism.  My primary reason for choosing this restaurant was the fact that Rachel Ray had visited it on her show $40 a Day.  (Certain friends of mine are fans of her.)  It is a very small, very cute place.  It is decidedly Asian in feel and look.  Unfortunately, due to the heat of the day, we were not interested in consuming any tea and simply ordered food instead.  It is a counter service restaurant and the food comes out very fast.  I ordered the Seared Tuna Bento Box.  Here’s a picture:

As you can see, the box included tuna, rice, broccoli, and a sweet potato salad.  The tuna was perfectly seared and had a wonderful meaty taste.  It was served at room temperature and was accompanied by something like a wasabi vinaigrette.  The vinaigrette was tasty but it was not easy to get enough of it to adhere to the tuna to make it practicable as a sauce.  The rice was well-cooked sushi style rice, by which I mean it was medium-grained, sticky, and had a rather nice bite to it.  It was topped by sesame seeds and some sort of fishy flavored flake.  I don’t know what it was but it worked rather well with the bland flavor of the rice.  The broccoli and the sweet potatoes seemed to share the same dressing of soy, sesame oil, and (I think) a little bit of peanut butter.  The dressing went great with the broccoli.  It was a perfect marriage of crisp, cold, fresh broccoli and the richness of the peanut sauce.  However, that same sauce was unable to complement the sweet potato salad in the same way.  The flavor of the sweet potato was actually overpowered the peanut sauce. 

I also ordered a very nice seaweed salad.  It was cold and had a sparkling, briny flavor.  As I think of most seaweed salads, it was like eating the essence of the sea. 

Overall, I enjoyed this meal.  However, there were things to nitpick.  Some of the brocolli (which included cut up pieces of the stem, which is not a problem) was so cold that it was virtually frozen.  The seaweed salad could have used a few garnishes to jazz it up a little bit.  Even a few sesame seeds would have helped both the presentation and the complexity of the dish.  The tuna could have been more aggressively seasoned.  And the wasabi was

I’ll be traveling to our Washington, D.C. for the next four days.  As a result, I won’t be able to post.  I will be back on Tuesday with a report on what I ate there.  Until then, have a wonderful weekend.

Meatloaf has been on my mind lately.  This is a classic American dish that is ripe for experimentation.  But I wanted to see if there were any rules to making meatloaf.  So I perused the Internet and a few of my cookbooks for meatloaf recipes.  I found these recipes:  meatloaf-recipes.pdf.  Please click on the link to see the ingredient list.  [Note, only ingredients are listed here, I chose not to get into the details of mixing and baking for this post.]  I then categorized the ingredients into these groups:  Meat, Bread, Vegetables, Egg, Salt, Pepper, Liquid, and Extras.  It was then just a little bit of math to get the ratio of ingredients to each other.  More specifically, using the meat content as my base, I found the ratio of all of the other ingredients (except the extras) to the beef.  For example, if there was 1 pound of meat in a recipe as well as 4 ounces of onion, then the ratio of onion to meat would be 4 ounces per pound or 25%.  To take another example, if there were 2 pounds of meat in a recipe as well as 3 ounces of bread crumbs, then the ratio of bread crumbs to meat would be 3.5 ounces bread crumbs per pound or 22%.  Please note, the percentages I am using are not intended to equal 100% when summed.  It is simply a way to succinctly relate the amount of an ingredient to the amount of meat in the recipe.  Each percentage, then, is independent of the others.   A full analysis of the recipe ingredients is here:  analysis-of-meatloaf-recipe-ingredients.pdf.  This is what I found for each ingredient.

Meat:  Of course, ground beef was present in all of the recipes.  When specified, the recipes asked for ground chuck or sirloin.  Two of the recipes asked for ground veal while one required ground sausage and one required ground pork.  It is my thinking that the addition of meats other than beef would produce a more complex flavor in the meatloaf 

Bread:  This is a rather varied group within these recipes.  The recipes asked for ground croutons, fresh, bread crumbs, bread crumbs, soft bread crumbs, cooked oatmeal, quick-cooking oats (raw), and torn sandwich bread.  Each of these ingredients would add a unique flavor.  The amount of bread in the recipes ranged from 1.5 oz of bread crumbs per pound or 9% to 7.5 oz per pound or 47%.  The average amount of bread in the recipe was 18% or about 2.9 ounces per pound. 

Vegetables:  Vegetables included onions, carrots, garlic, red pepper, mushrooms, and parsley.  By weight, the amount of vegetables in the recipes ranged from 0% to 40% with an average of 20%.

Egg:  The recipes varied in the amount of egg in the recipe.  The amount ranged from 2/5 of an egg to 2 eggs per pound.  The average amount of egg was 12% which is roughly one egg per pound. 

Salt:  The salt content in the recipes ranged from 1/3 tsp. per pound to approximately 2 T per pound.  The average amount of salt was about 1 ¼ tsp. per pound.  Some recipes had other ingredients that contributed a significant amount of sodium, like soy sauce.

Pepper:  The amount of pepper ranged from no added pepper to ½ tsp. per pound.  The average was 1/4 tsp. per pound.

Liquid:  The added liquids to the recipes included milk, ketchup, steak sauce, soy sauce, chili sauce, tomato paste, and Worcestershire sauce.  The amount of liquid ranged from no added liquid to 12 ounces of liquid per pound.  The average amount of liquid was 23% or about 4 ounces of liquid per pound.

Extras:  The additional flavor ingredients were wide and varied.  They included cayenne, chili powder, thyme, horseradish, Dijon mustard, Parmesan cheese, rosemary, lemon zest, steak sauce, soy sauce, chili sauce, garlic salt, season salt, dry mustard, and Worcestershire sauce.  What a diversity!

From this data, we can construct an “average” American meatloaf.  For this recipe, I will use the most general and “blandest” ingredients. 

Average American Meatloaf

2 lbs ground chuck

6 ounces unseasoned, dry bread crumbs

½ cup finely chopped yellow onion

2 eggs

2 ½ tsp. salt

½ tsp. pepper

8 ounces ketchup

Extra ketchup for topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all ingredients in a large bowl.  Do this thoroughly but not too vigorously.  Place into a greased 9-inch loaf pan and then remove the mix from the pan onto a parchment paper lined half sheet pan or cookie sheet. (Alternatively, you can bake in the loaf pan or shape the loaf free-form.)  Bake until the internal temperature reaches approximately 125 degrees.  Take the meatloaf out of the oven and top with ketchup.  Continue to bake until the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees.  Take out of the oven, loosely tent with aluminum foil and let rest for 10 minutes.  Serve.  

Of course, now that we know what the average amounts of ingredients in meatloaf are, we can substitute as we wish while being confident that our meatloaf will retain classic meatloaf characteristics.  For example, I can quite easily write this recipe now:

BBQ Meatloaf

1 pound ground sirloin

1 pound ground pork

6 ounces fresh bread crumbs

1/4 cup finely chopped yellow onion

1/4 cup finely diced red pepper

1 garlic clove, minced

2 eggs

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp. pepper

6 ounces barbeque sauce (by weight)

2 ounces Worcestershire sauce

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp. dry mustard

1 tsp. chili powder

Extra barbeque sauce for topping

Proceed as detailed in Average American Meatloaf. 

Of course, rules can be broken.  If you want more vegetables, go ahead and put more in.  But you might want to use less liquid if you do.  If there’s a flavor you want to put into the meatloaf, go ahead.  Just try to make it consistent with the other flavors. 

The idea of this post was to come up with a general baseline for meatloaf so people could jump off and make up their own.  This is just like any other cooking technique.  Once you learn the basic technique, you can use your knowledge to make new and exciting things.  So go out and create already. 

A fabulous way to use up your leftover risotto is to make a simple cake out of them.  I had some very simple risotto on hand (no vegetable or meat additions and just a little bit of Parmesan cheese).  Here’s a recipe for what I did:

Simplest Risotto Cakes 

2 cups leftover risotto (cold)

2 T bread crumbs

1 T finely chopped parsley
1 egg yolk

eggs and bread crumbs for breading

olive oil for pan-frying 

Combine the risotto, 2 T bread crumbs, parsley, and egg yolk.  Mix thoroughly with your hands.  Shape into four equal balls and flatten into cakes about 3/4 inch high.  Dip into the egg (1 egg plus the leftover egg white from the egg you took the egg yolk from is plenty) and then lightly bread with the bread crumbs.  Heat a saute pan with a thin layer of olive oil over medium heat.  Cook, flipping once, until both sides are a deep golden brown.  Serve immediately.   

The risotto cakes as written in this recipe will be fairly bland in flavor.  Sure, they’ll have a crisp exterior and a warm, creamy interior with that nice “bite” that only risotto gives.  But they won’t really jump off the plate.  I made them this way because I was going to pair it with some very flavorful food, about which more later.  To dress these cakes up, consider this recipe from Epicurious.  It jazzes up the risotto cakes with Fontina cheese and chives.  But also consider these ideas (caution: these ideas are untested): blue or gorgonzola cheese, minced red pepper, caramelized onions, diced proscuitto, or sauteed mushrooms.  The possibilities are endless.  Also consider using different types of bread crumbs.  I used some ordinary dry bread crumbs from the grocery store but Panko bread crumbs would be an excellent choice as would be fresh bread crumbs or even ground croutons.  Just remember to regulate the heat so the outsides don’t burn before the inside is heated through.

Now, I made my risotto cakes plain because I was pairing it with some very tart greens, a very simple salmon salad, and feta cheese.  This is what I did:

I took about 2 cups of leaf green lettuce and tossed it with 1 T of olive oil, 1 T of red wine vinegar, salt and pepper.  I used that as a base for my dish.  Then went on the risotto cakes and then my simple salmon salad.  That was only leftover Simple Salmon hastily put together.  I flaked the fish slightly and then mixed it with enough Dilled Sour Cream Sauce to make it into a salad.  That went on top of risotto cakes.  Then I garnished with feta cheese, cherry tomatoes from my garden, and parsley. 

It was pretty darn delicious.  The greens were wonderfully tart (almost too much so if they were all alone).  The salmon salad was meaty with just the right amount of acidity from the Dilled Sour Cream Sauce.  The feta added a nice creamy saltiness to the dish which contrasted wonderfully with the relatively bland creaminess of the risotto cakes.  The cherry tomatoes were a much-needed sweet accent.  And the risotto cakes grounded the whole dish-it was like a canvas upon which all of the other flavors could meld together.  It also added a great texture contrast to the rest of the ingredients.  Not bad for leftover night. 

These are pictures of some of my nieces and nephews.  Enjoy!

This last one is probably the best picture I’ve ever taken. 

Hey all you hot dog chili sauce eaters!  Better watch out, there’s a recall of Castleberry’s Hot Dog Chili Sauce.  What is hot dog chili sauce?  Is it just chili?  Or is it a chili like mixture with characteristics that make it eminently suitable for placing atop a hot dog?  Does it have beans or not? 

I went to the Castleberry’s website and it did not provide a description of what hot dog chili sauce was.  So I then did a Google search for “hot dog chili sauce” and found two recipes one of which was ground beef, onion, garlic, ketchup, barbeque sauce, hot sauce, and mustard.  Basically a really bad chili.  The other recipe was onions, bell peppers, sweet pickle relish, cider vinegar, prepared chili sauce, brown sugar, mustard, and hot sauce.  That seems more like a barbeque sauce, sort of. 

What diversity there is in the world of hot dog chili sauce.  And to think there is a market for it!  Any comments about this apparently large subject would be appreciated.  The next time I have hot dogs I will be sure to be making some hot dog chili sauce. 

Didn’t get a chance to cook last night so I’m posting a simple chicken recipe that is really tasty and really satisfying.  It’s more of a cold weather dish but since it is such a comfort-food like food, I really can enjoy it anytime.  This is a pretty simple recipe-my only hint is to keep an eye on the heat when pan-frying the chicken.  It will burn fairly easily with the small amount of oil in the pan. 

Crispy Chicken Strips with Pan Gravy Camden Style, from The New England Cookbook by Brooke Dojny

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2 T yellow cornmeal

1 1/2 tsp dried sage

3/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp black pepper

1 1/4 lbs skinless, boneless chicken breasts or cutlets

2 T vegetable oil

2 T butter

3/4 cup chicken broth or stock

3/4 cup whole milk

Stir together the flour, cornmeal, 1 tsp. of the sage, salt, and pepper in a shallow dish.  Cut the chicken crosswise into 1/2 inch wide strips and dredge it in the flour mixtures, shaking off the excess.  Reserve the remaining seasoned flour.

Heat 1 tablespoon each of the oil and butter in a large skillet.  Cook half the chicken over medium-high heat until the strips are crisp and browned outside and cooked within, 3 to 5 minutes.  Repeat with the remaining oil, butter, and chicken.  Remove the chicken to a plate, leaving the drippings in the pan.

Add 1 T of the remaining flour mixture to the skillet and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.  Whisk in the broth and milk and bring to a boil, whisking and scraping up any browned bits in the bottom of the pan.  Simmer, stirring, for about 3 minutes, until smooth and thickened.  Season with the remaining sage and additional salt and pepper to taste. 

Serve the chicken with the gravy spooned over it.