PapaSlurp's Profile
Why/when is cast-iron better than non-stick? [moved from Home Cooking]
great, thanks for the feedback everyone. couple more questions:
what does it mean to "season" a pan?
and what kind of special care do cast-iron skillets require?
Why/when is cast-iron better than non-stick? [moved from Home Cooking]
I'm new to cooking and my copy of "On Food and Cooking" hasn't arrived from Amazon yet.
I've read many times a particular preparation calling for a "heavy cast iron skillet". For example, a few people mentioned this in a thread on searing skirt steak.
What's the reason for this? What does a cast-iron skillet do better than my non-stick?
And how does the thickness/heaviness of a skillet affect results?
Thanks much for any comments.
Blended whiskeys/bourbons
Clearly I have lots of learning to do.
I thought there were but 2 distinctions, single malt and blended, and that any name-brand whiskeys were the latter.
Thanks much for that list, I will definitely be using it. And I'll be doing a bit of reading as well.
Blended whiskeys/bourbons
I'm not into the single malt ubersnob stuff. As with dogs, I prefer mutts: they're better balanced, easy to find, and usually not overpriced.
That said, my exposure is still far too slight. I prefer Gentleman Jack but also enjoy Knob Creek or Maker's. What should I try next?
Thanks
Korean booze and drinking - recommendations and insight
Non-Koreans, don't be fooled by your Korean pal who delights in being your personal culinary ambassador to The Motherland. They've done you right with the restaurant and food recommendations, but pass on the soju.
Soju tastes like rubbing alcohol, and is good for 3 things only:
1) getting blitzed as cheaply and as quickly as possible
2) allowing Korean Americans to wax nostalgic about the Yonsei summer program
3) allowing Korean Americans to give cute pouring lessons to non-Koreans (ie, 2 hands, oppa, hyung, etc)
The thing is, a bottle of soju costs $2 *max* in Seoul, but at least 5 times as much anywhere else (shipping + import taxes). Soju *used* to be made from fermented rice or sweet potatoes. NO MAS, just chemical nastiness these days.
Here's the thing: most cultures around the world enjoy their booze. But nowhere on earth is binge drinking and late-night street vomit as mainstream as in Korea. Extreme drunkenness is the de facto crucible in which friendships (and 1nightstands) are forged and solidified. The average 20something FEMALE Seoulite knows at least 2 dozen drinking games. The fuel for this fire? Unless it's an overpriced nightclub where the cheapest booze is a $100 bottle of Jack, it's soju. In Korea, 99 times out of 100, it's about about the drunkenness, not the drink itself.
I'm not hating on Korea. I love the drinking culture, the games, the getting plastered, all of it. Some of the most fun nights I've had were spent in a drunken haze in Apkujeong, Hongdae, Kangnam yeok, etc. But Koreans let's be honest here: recommending soju in America is like recommending Colt 45 in France. Without cultural context, it's utterly pointless.
If you're a non-Korean interested in Korean booze, skip the soju. Go for a couple of tasty Korean liquors.
One is pronounced BEK SAY JOO (image http://www.ksdb.co.kr/eng/product/bekseju/bekseju_concept.asp ). Taste-wise, it's sort of an Asian white wine, sipped and not shot. Content-wise, it's an Asian gin: a ton of different herbs and ingredients (lycii folium. MMMmmmmm, lycii folium http://www.ksdb.co.kr/eng/product/herbs/herbs.asp ). People mix BSJ with soju to make OH SHIP JOO a play on the fact that the BEK in BEK SAY JOO means 100 and OH SHIP means 50. Fun stuff but IMO adding soju to anything is a great way to make it taste worse.
For me, SAHN SA CHOON (image http://soolsool.koreasme.com/img/1999-01387_cat_5_large_img1.jpg ) is the best. A wine made with rose hips. This best taste of any Korean booze you'll likely find outside Korea.
FWIW the best Korean liquor is DOOL JJEUK JOO. You won't find it in the US. It's made in North Korea from I believe a "cousin" of the blueberry. A handful of places in Seoul get it on the gray market and sell it when it's available.
As far as Korean beers go, any place in LA will have all or part of the O.B., Cass, or Hite triforce of mediocrity. Think Coors/PBR/Bud but imported 1/2way across the globe. I prefer Cass.
Anyone know if Japanese markets carry this product?
What are they like? I love weird candy.
http://www.bad-candy.com/
For lovers of Indian Food: A Gem in K-Town
Thank you OP, I'll head there next chance I get.
Help ISO Korean marinated intestines
Good luck, though I can't for the life of me understand the appeal.
One of my favorite bars in Seoul was off of the windy parking street in Hongdae - the name of the bar itself was "gopchang jungol". They served only beer, whiskey, makkoli, and oddball pub foods. No gopchang though. The beautiful thing about the bar was that it was one of maybe 3 bars I'd been to in Korea that didn't blare pop music at you. Instead they had a massive collection of 70s Korean records - all sad and folksy singer-songwriter stuff. Thanks for the memory.
Favorite pork dish in LA?
Tough call really on naming your restaurant - do you err on the side of pretense ("Arango" perhaps), and aim to get all the food snobs salivating in Pavlovian response? Or do you put your own dorky first name in the title, as a big middle finger to your snobby peers, their geeky, wet-noodle worshipers, and to conspicuous ostentation in general?
The link has been posted. Food style is "California Italian". Some interesting offerings such as a flight of scallops on the starer menu - 5 scallops each prepared in a different way.
In any case - it was fantastic, honest, good pairings, both service and food were utterly devoid of pretense. I called ahead to ask about dress code... "however you like. we get people in tuxes, we get people in jeans. Just no sandals or shorts please". We found this to be true when we arrived - from the "smart" jean look to suits. Service was friendly, prompt, impeccable, and knowledgeable even about the beer menu. (I can't comment on the wine menu other than to say it was huge.) When some rubes standing near the bar were crowding our nearby table, our waitstaff was there within 2 minutes to usher them elsewhere. Excellent food, and the best wait staff I've ever experienced in LA. Was planning to get wine but the beer menu was surprisingly well-constructed with some I'd never tried, so I couldn't resist. Highly recommend.
Favorite pork dish in LA?
Pork chop at Doug Arango's. I love chops, and this one was the best I've ever had, period. Perfectly cooked and seasoned, served with pears and sour kraut. Incredible. Best kraut I've ever had too - very subtle.
Note that the menu on their website is outdated (the chop listed is served with apricots and parmesan cauliflower). I was there about a month ago.
Help ISO Korean marinated intestines
Yeah - asked for your marinated gopchang jungeol at dinner last night. Two ajummas in their 60s in attendance, both who'd lived in LA for over 30 years. "Nope, never seen it in LA".
whats the best cappuccino in all of LA??
I tried the cap at Fratelli's today - I'd rate it a "not so much". Perhaps I've been conditioned but I'd choose a dry Starbucks cap over that.
Help ISO Korean marinated intestines
aha!
You got me there. Guess you just need to keep your eyes peeled.
Having dinner tonight with older Koreans, I'll ask around.
Help ISO Korean marinated intestines
I assume you're talking about soondae.
In Korea that's a food commonly associated with street vendors (the carts are called "pojangmacha"). As you know normally it's served with salt, but since it's usually sold alongside ricecake in red pepper sauce (ddukbokki), it's easy to ask the street vendor in Seoul to slather it in the red pepper sauce (gochu-jang).
You're not going to find anyone that "specializes" in soondae. It'll be one of 30-40 menu items.
The difficult thing in K-town is that some places have soondae but few serve ddukbokki, so they don't keep a big vat of red sauce hot and ready to go. And when anyone makes that sauce, it's for 40 servings not 4. And if you do find a restaurant willing to make it for you, don't bother. You want a place where dukbokki turnover is high, otherwise they're going to be terribly out of practice with their sauce and it's going to taste really weird.
Your best bet is to hit up a Ktown pub (they'd maybe call it a "hof"), the kind that stays open until 4am and has chicken wings and Korean stews on the menu. Ask if they have ddukbokki (pron "DUCK bo key") and if they do, ask if you can get "SOON day" with ddukbokki sauce. I'm sure if that place doesn't have it, they can point you to another place that does.
Maybe just post again asking for late night watering holes in Ktown with Korean pub food.
Attention L.A. Koreans. Please Help
"If you can read Korean, please check out the Korean language version of Wonjodak's website"
You can see the dates on #3, "ginseng dakhanmari". Looks like all the recipies are based on a tweaked/partially deconstructed samgyetang. You're not going to find this "dish" anywhere else - clearly one lady with her own personal recipe started her own shop.
As far as getting another Korean restaurant to try to replicate it - I think it'd be easier to make it yourself through trial and error. I'm not sure anyone walking in to any ethnic family restaurant asking them to tweak their recipe to match something they tasted in the motherland is going to be very welcome - let alone someone who can't speak their native language. Imagine trying to convince an Italian guy how he should change up his family-recipe alfredo sauce because of something you tried on vaca in Florence.
Attention L.A. Koreans. Please Help
Yeah.
That's what sam gye tang is, as explained in previous posts.
DAIKOKUYA - amazing ramen, but avoid after 6pm at all costs
DAIKOKUYA has the best, best ramen. The best. It's so damn good. I want some right now.
Whenever I get the crave, I always go over there. And I'm always SUPER hungry. And I always end up waiting for a seat for well over 45 minutes.
The problem is that THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for the wait to be this long. Regardless of the fact that there is a full house and a dozen or more parties waiting to sit down, none of the staff hurries nor appears frazzled. One of the booths opens up? Well, you'll just have to wait for the single busboy to go clear it off. Oh but the busboy is also in charge of the register. And monitoring the wait line. Everyone's waiting forever to sit down, and the full staff just takes their sweet time. Then a single girl will walk in, ignore the long waitlist, speak a few words of Japanese to the host, and instantly get a counter seat. Invariably she'll block out two other seats on either side of her, and the servers won't have the foresight to ask her to scoot down.
I always walk out well-fed and frustrated. I fantasize about the management realizing how much more money they could be making if they hired two extra bodies, or if they got someone who understands volume and turnover to go pull some drill seargent stuff.
Definitely go, but go for one of those late 2pm lunches.
Attention L.A. Koreans. Please Help
"Dakhanmari" is not really the name of the dish. It literally means "one chicken" in Korean. So ordering it by name will get you what you want in that restaurant, but of course will be the same as saying "give me one chicken please" anywhere else.
I'll have to agree with awl. I think your restaurant has done their own thing with the classic Korean soup "sam-gye-tang" which is at its most basic a chicken soup comprised of a full chicken, garlic, ginseng, onion, and dates. I think your best bet is to seek out a good samgyetang place in Ktown and try to approximate the dipping sauce on your own.
Where can I get mochi balls?
You also might try heading to one of the Korean grocers in K-town. I'd guess it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than anything imported from Japan. Ask for "bing-soo duck".
Duck (Koreans would write it in English as "dduk") is Korean for "ricecake" - there are lots of kinds of ricecake in Korean cooking, so you have to specify that you want the kind that Koreans normally put on top of "bing-soo", a summertime shaved ice treat (which I think is on the menu at Pinkberry).
Best West LA market for fresh herbs/staples?
excellent, thanks for the suggestion. when is the VA grounds one open? and where are the VA grounds?
Best West LA market for fresh herbs/staples?
OMG CHEESE CURDS?!
See you there. I'll be the one FEEDING on cheese curds, chewing so as to maximize teeth-squeak whilst my girlfriend rolls her eyes. You have just made this Minnesota-bred guy very, very happy.
Best West LA market for fresh herbs/staples?
Awesome, thanks. Is the Culver City FM the Tuesday one listed here? Have you seen shallots there?
http://www.farmernet.com/events/cfms?orderby=city%2cvenue%5fname
And when you say "special things" what do you mean? Can you give me a forinstance?
Prepare-ahead lunch suggestions other than egg or chicken salad?
Try googling for a recipie for sausage cream pasta. I used this one https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/dsshapiro/web/recipes/pasta.html with penne.
The reason I'm recommending it is because when I reheated it days later, it was amazing, and BETTER than it was fresh!
So here's the story - like an idiot, I bought one of those big dry italian red/brown colored charcuterie numbers - and of course when I opened it up to remove the casing and "crumble" it into a pan for browning, the sausage wasn't having any of it. It was rather like trying to crumble roast beef or something. So I improvised by dicing it up for browning in a sautee pan. Mistake #2 - this stuff doesn't brown. By the time this occurred to me, I nibbled one and it was well past tender into crispy bacon territory. I used rapini (broccoli rabe) as the green, just hacking the bunch a couple times on the bias after steaming, and it was pretty good. Definitely not great. Stuck the other half in the fridge.
Then two days later I brought it in to work, thinking I'd doomed myself to a sad little microwave leftover lunch. TOTALLY WRONG! The flavors had mingled and improved, and the sausage was again tender! The rapini held up really well! The next day - still great!
Broccoli side dish?
I think with burgers you might want to think about a nice moist side, in olive oil with herbs.
Steam florets for 6 minutes, salt to taste then set them aside. chop up a couple tablespoons of some fresh herbs like tarragon sage or whatever's on hand. sautee a coarsely chopped med onion and a few cloves of diced garlic (I use like 5-6 cos I'm hardcore like that) in 3 tbsp v olive oil on med heat with a couple quick shakes of pepper flakes and half of your herbs. once the onions are nice and golden, add the florets and stir enough to coat. sautee for a couple minutes, then remove from heat, add the rest of the fresh herbs, and salt to taste.
Best West LA market for fresh herbs/staples?
Thanks for the response.
I'm a total noob - I've been to one farmer's market, Larchmont FM just because I stumbled across it after brunch. What are the biggest/best of the West LA farmer's markets?
Best West LA market for fresh herbs/staples?
I want shallots - lots of them. I consider it a staple but can't source properly.
Our good pal Ralph can't be counted on to sell them - not even the snobbier Ralph's that at least have organic veggie sections. If they do have them, they're always overpriced and picked over.
I also want nice fresh herbs. Whenever I pay Ralph $1.99 for two ounces of tarragon in a plastic box, I know I'm getting hosed. I can hear Ralph personally laughing at me behind a two-way mirror somewhere nearby. And they're always out of rosemary.
Where can I get the hookup for good, cheap shallots, nice fresh herbs, and other good stuff like that? What's the best one-stop place for home cooks? Should I be sourcing this stuff from a farmer's market, perhaps?
Dishes to embrace/avoid at O-dae-san?
sort of the Korean version of corned beef and cabbage, instead with slices of pork and cabbage. Oysters on the side if it's a more expensive dinner ordeal. Many places will have their own dipping sauce on the side. fantastic stuff - though I admit I've never had it at Kobawoo.
Creativity is not really a virtue, at least not yet, in the Korean kitchen diaspora. I'm still waiting for a creative chef to play around with Korean flavors and dishes - something sorely needed here in LA. Maybe it's here and I just haven't found it.
Some high concept fast food place called ssam bar (coincidentally the house special is bossam) in NYC http://www.momofuku.com/ sounds interesting, with kimchee puree available as a sort of sandwich condiment.
Dishes to embrace/avoid at O-dae-san?
As someone who has lived in Seoul for 4 years and who loves the hell out of Korean food, I offer some humble advice: stay the hell away from Korean-style sushi.
If you've got that try-anything-once attitude - go for it. Here's what you're in for: a crunchier (we're talking fish crunchy, not tempura crunchy), relatively flavorless version of sushi.
And let's be frank here - Korean purveyors are not necessarily the gold standard when it comes to "selecting" (read: pouncing on whatever's left at the end of the day) raw meat and fish. At least make sure that when they serve that stuff to you, it's a) cooked and b) slathered in spice.
I've only been back from Seoul for a year so don't know all the ins and outs of the Ktown scene, but Kobawoo House on has some of the best *cooked* fish I've had in LA. Incredible sauce. Easily holds up to top seafood restaurants in Seoul. I can't remember what the fish dish is called, nor which fish they use, but I'm almost certain it's the only fish on the menu, and comes out as 4 fillets. Amazing stuff, esp considering that Kobawoo is mainly known for their bossam (and deviating from the house specialty at Korean places is usually not a good idea).
698 S Vermont (x-street is 7th). I'd recommend weekend lunch - the parking lot behind the restaurant, staffed during the week, was wide open and free last time I was there on a Sunday afternoon.
