Todd & Yukari's Food Journal

3:59:07 PM EDT

Real hollandaise sauce uses a lot of butter, but we think it's worth it sometimes.

The most famous use of this sauce is for eggs benedict, but it has other uses too (including with asparagus.).

Ingredients: 8 tbsp (1 stick) butter, 3 egg yolks, 1/2 tsp salt, pinch cayenne pepper, 1 tbsp lemon juice (or more to taste).

1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat.  DO NOT let it brown

2. Combine the other ingredients in the blender and turn on (the blender). Drizzle in butter. The mixture will thicken; taste and add anything necessary. Move the sauce to a container and serve or keep warm.

 

 

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5:20:26 PM EST

400 g small-thickness white fish (thick fish may not cook fully in this recipe), 1/3 tsp salt, dash black pepper, 1 tomato, 4 green beans, 1/2 cup white wine, 1 bay leaf, 3/4 cup heavy cream, salt & pepper

1. Salt and pepper on fish; leave for 10 minutes

2. Slice tomato (keep sauce if tomato is canned)

3. Boil green beans.

4. Cut beans into thin diagonal slices

5. Place fish, bay  leaf, and wine in pan

6. Cook the fish

7. Put fish on plates. Keep the contents/sauce in the pan.

8. Add heavy cream to sauce in the pan and thicken to 1/2 porton.

9. Add tomato (and sauce if present) and green beans

10. Add salt and pepper. Pour sauce on fish.

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3:53:40 PM EST

From scratch.  With many curries, lots of chopped onion seems to be required in the recipe, so a food processor is very helpful.  For the protracted stirring and heating after the chopping, Vidalia or other 'sweet' onions are friendly to the eyes. 

Light curry (color)

Main group: 400g chicken, 2tbsp butter, 1 package sliced mushroom.

Group A: 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp ground cardamon, 1 tsp cinnamon powder, 2 bay leaves, 2 tsp garlic, 2 tsp minced ginger

Group B: 2 tsp red pepper, 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp sugar

   (add with group B): 2 chopped tomatoes

Group C: 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup heavy cream, 2 pinches garam masala

Step  1: cube chicken.

          2: melt butter in pan; add A group spices.

         When the above are fragrant:

          3: add tomatoes, B group, chicken and mushrooms.

          4: when chicken is fully cooked, add group C.

          5 Heat (maybe 5 minutes).

The recipe asks for coconut juice or coconut milk.  Cream can be used if you like.  

Dark curry (color)

Curry base ingredients: 3 medium onions (600 grams), 1/2 can tomato (200 grams), 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, 15 grams butter, 2 tbsp canola oil

Steps for base

1. Finely chop onions

2. Heat the pan (medium heat)

3. Add oil and cumin seeds

4. When cumin seeds pop, add onion and saute under high heat until most moisture is gone

5. Add butter, lower heat, saute until onion becomes dark brown

6. Add tomato with liquid (1/2 of each contained in the can). 'break' the tomato so it is squashed and loses its shape.

7. When some oil comes to the surface, turn off the heat.

NOTE: base can be frozen,.

Ingredients for main recipe:

2 chicken thighs (or 500 grams), 1 tsp salt, 1/2 cup plain yogurt, 4 servings of the above curry base.

Group A: 1 tbsp coriander powder, 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp red pepper, 1 tsp cumin powder, 1/2 tsp allspice

Group B: 1 cube chicken bouillon, 1/3 tsp salt, 4 cups water

Final group: 1 tbsp garam masala, 1/2 cup coconut milk

Steps for main recipe:

1. Dice chicken thigh into 1-inch cubes, put in a bowl

2. Add salt and yogurt in the bowl and leave for 20 to 30 minutes

3. Put curry base and group A in a pan. Mix and saute for 5 to 6 minutes

4. Add chicken and turn up the heat. Saute until the chicken color changes (until chicken is cooked)

5. When chicken is cooked, add group B, when it boils, lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

6. Add garam masala, cook for 10 minutes, add coconut milk and turn off the heat.

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3:54:22 PM EST

Deep-fried sushi.  Alabama of course.  Yukari described this restaurant as a fusion of Japanese, French, and Alabamian.

We went to San San Trio, a "French Japanese" restaurant.  Part of the menu is 'Japanese' food and part is 'French'.  The Japanese food had the usual sushi and sashimi, and some sushi rolls, including the San San Trio roll.  The roll contains sashimi and avocado with other ingredients, all deep-fried, so that the outside was a bit crunchy.  The food was served with regular sushi and sashimi on a "love boat".

The French part had what seemed to be Japanese food with a French twist--Japanese names with a French appearance and presentation.  Since all food has to be presented, we had the Japanese.

Before the Love Boat, we had part of the head area of a large fish that had been made into sashimi.  It's not on the menu, but some restaurants can prepare this.  For dessert, there was no more creme brulee in the restaurant, so France had no direct representation.  Deep-fried food could still be represented, though, so for dessert:  fried banana.   

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2:37:58 PM EST

The The Palace Asian Bistro offers the fast food version of Chinese food if you use the menu printed in English, but if you ask for the menu printed in Chinese characters, 'real' Chinese food, as well as some Korean dishes, can be eaten, and they are great.  Our favorite is the Happy Family.  The usual fast food version has pork, beef, and chicken.  This dish has shrimp, octopus squid, jellyfish, and many other ingredients. 

Golden Corral has true, middle-of-the-road American food.  The draw is--all you can eat buffet, using a new plate each time.  The buffet has everyting from salad and fruit, to beef and pork, to grits and mashed potatoes,  to vegetables with sauces, to cookies and soft-serve ice cream for dessert. You can go for beakfast on Saturday and Sunday (7:30 a.m.-11 a.m.), or for lunch and dinner from 11 a.m.-10 p.m. seven days a week.  Half the food is a bit different for the different meal times.

Taj India has good Indian food (as if from India, not from Geronimo; Colombus thought he was in India).  It has curries and other food, varying in spice from zero to unbearable.

Renge offers 'authentic' Japanese food , meaning here that the food is deemed good by Japanese customers from Japan. (Benihana's and clones are popular enough, but they are American inventions, though that may not deter you otherwise.) This restaurant, however, is both genuine in what it offers and has genuinely delicious food.  

 

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2:20:03 PM EST

These four restaurants, all at Birmingham's Summit shopping center and all a bit less formal than the three restaurants mentioned previously, are all popular. 

The three have, respectively,  1. Mexican, 2. Chinese, 3,. Italian, and 4.American food.                    

1. On the Border, has excellent Mexican food that includes the option of mesquite-grilled steak in your fajita or burrito (not spicy is an option if in a fajita), guacamole which can be made fresh at the table if you'd like (at a charge), and alcoholic and other drinks,. The steak, when ordered with a fajita, can be eaten or mixed however you like.  Todd eats half of the steak by itself--being his favorite steak!--and the second half mixed in the fajita. 

 2. P. F. Chang's has great food and is very different than the common fast food version of 'Chinese' food that is often available. 

3. Macaroni Grill has some original items on the menu, after you start with the complimentary bread with olive oil for dipping.  Entrees include seasonal variations and a lobster meat in butter-lemon sauce dish.

4. Two girls, visiting from Japan, wanted to try Cheesecake Factory, figuring that a restaurant with such a name must serve cheesecake for breakfast.  It cleverly avoided the situation by not offering breakfast.  We went for dinner, though, and had the cheesecake for dessert. This may be what people mean when they say 'American food', but don't mean American-style pizza or McDonald's style hamburger.  A side note: 'hamburger' originally referred to the German town of Hamburg; there is no ham involved.

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6:28:40 PM EST

The big 3, formal restaurants (you can, however, be relaxed if you feel comfortable being less formal than most others):

Copper grill has center cut steak, lobster flown in from Maine, and almost personalized service.  For a few times a year, it's hard to beat, though it's rivaled by the next restaurant, which has different specialties.

McCormick and Schmick has a focus on seafood.  We had swordfish for one order and a lobster for the other.  The desserts are made by the restaurant.  The creme brulee and the upside-down apple pie--with super restaurant-made cinnamon ice cream and cinnamon paste swirled on the plate--were unbeatable.  The menu changes every day!

'The third restaurant, the Tavern, is at the Summit center.  It has a great lunch and a dinner for later times.  The appetizers and the steak are very good..

 

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10:05:01 AM EST
Feeling Surprised
We went to a restaurant that features "Southern Italian food".  We had fried: lobster tail, fried green tomatoes, and bread with melted butter instead of olive oil.  Y'all not bringin' that diet stuff here!  The green tomatoes might be a kind of tomato, but fried.  Mexican food with green tomato salsa is an idea. . . maybe a 'southern mexican restaurant' would have fried salsa, fried tacos, fried quesadilla. . . it would go with the fried ice cream (which is offered at some restaurants in America).  This idea wouldn't be healthy, but it could be popular. 

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1:09:56 PM EST
Feeling Happy
Costco is a good place to get paper items and occasional other things, but it has good food if you look at what they have and choose the right kind.  For example, we love their Parmesan bagles, organic milk, spring mix salad, fresh fruits, pasta sauce, DeCecco pasta, etc.  Frozen beef such as meatballs and Philly steaks are good but very fatty.  Eggplant Parmesan is excellent, and so is Mexican Grill chicken quesadilla.  These items are very convenient for quick dinner. 

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2:40:07 PM EDT
Feeling Happy

Ingredients:

• 2 boneless & skinless chicken breast, cooked (we cook Tyson frozen breasts) 
• 1 pkg frozen broccoli, cooked
• 1 can cream of celery soup  
• 1 cup mayonnaise  
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp curry powder
• parmesan cheese (grated)
• seasoned bread crumbs

How to Cook:

1. Place the broccoli into a 9 x 13 pan or Corning Ware container.
2. Cut the chicken into large pieces and layer over broccoli.
3. Mix soup, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and curry powder.  Spread over chicken.
4. Sprinkle parmesan cheese and bread crumbs on top.
5. Bake at 325 for 45 minutes. 

 

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