I discovered a recipe from Emeril which brought back fond memories of thin sliced beef from KTA in a soy sauce marinade. (The butchers eventually stopped offering the thin slicing service; it’s a time-consuming process to keep the meat and knife sufficiently cold. Continue reading for more commentary on this subject.) I’m not sure I would call the recipe “Korean.” It sounds more like an American bastard child of grilled thin sliced beef teriyaki over sticky white rice and ground pork lettuce wraps with crunchy rice noodles.

Anyway, the only part of the dish I made word-for-word was the chile sauce. For the marinade, I just threw the ingredients together with a “Oh that looks about right.”

A few helpful hints for next time:

Continue reading »

Emeril Lagasse’s Best Ever Coconut Cream Pie made with Alton Brown’s homemade coconut milk and a Whole Foods Whole Wheat Crust. Absolutely scrumptious. A few remarks about the procedure:

1. The shredded meat of two coconuts was sufficient for my purposes (see No. 3).
2. Eight ounces of fresh coconut meat, one cup of whole milk, and one cup of coconut "juice"—the water inside the coconut—made just slightly less than 1.5 cups of coconut milk. (Yes, I know, it's not exactly Alton Brown's recipe—but hey, Alton Brown's recipe isn't exactly traditional either.) Next time use 9 oz of shredded coconut and 2.25 cups milk-water.
3. Cheesecloth works great when it's time to squeeze out the milk. Also, I didn't toss the leftover coconut from the milk process, but included it in the pie (one cup). I'm not sure if using fresh coconut would make much difference, but if I get a third coconut next time, I should toss the used coconut and use fresh flakes.
4. A video on YouTube suggests exposing the coconut to an open flame keeps the brown skin attached to the shell.

   Continue reading »