Chasing James Beard

I just love the Spices and Tease stand at the Union Square market. Not to sound cheesy, but you really do feel like you are transported to a different world in that tiny booth. The colors are so vibrant, you just want to stick your nose in every bowl and every time you seem them scoop out tea with that really long scooper, you think to yourself, how the hell did you not spill or knock anything over doing that. Russian Juice is a huge tea drinker, so when I stopped by I purchased her some mango-pineapple-chili tea. Not because I thought it sounded good, more because she likes tasting unique things. (And to you perverts out there, I know what you are thinking, so stop.)

They sell various black teas like dark choco orange, lemon mint and oolong. Green teas include gin fizz, Sencha and strawberry rhubarb. White tea selections have tropical oranage, red fruit and spicy chocolate. There is so  much more too than just tea. Spice and teas also sells these gorgeous spice blends, sugars, salts, etc. Am really loving these items to gift to other people, they just look so decadent and unique. If you order from SpiceandTease.com vs going to their store locations or Union Square Market booth, it’s free shipping over $60 orders with the code FREESHIPPING.

-Joyce Huang

A girlfriend of mine ordered a smoked turkey from Greenberg turkeys this past Thanksgiving and let me tell you, that thing was so freaking good. So good that I ordered another one a few weeks later just to eat for dinner. Word spread that another turkey was being delivered (mainly because I was talking non-stop about it), and suddenly I became a very popular girl and people wanted to come and visit me. I of course kept my lights off and ignored the bell because I didn’t want to share.

You can snag one of those turkeys for yourself at gobblegobble.com (how cute, right?). What is fantastic is that these turkey come in a variety of sizes and are very affordable. A 6lb turkey is just $28.15 + very reasonable shipping costs. Because it’s a smoked turkey, you will be able to eat it as soon as you unpack it without heating it up. I found myself spending many nights in front of the telly (sorry, I’ve acquired a few British peeps lately) with Tupperware full of turkey balanced on my belly. I’m not ashamed.

The dark meat was flavorful and moist. The white very tasty as well, but slightly drier. However, I’m a gravy girl, so I like dipping my turkey in it, which therefore takes away any dryness. Some of the most coveted pieces of this turkey is the sections that are encrusted with their family seasoning. So good. You can’t really eat the skin though, so just peel that off and save it for future dishes or what not where you want to add some smoky flavor.

Not gonna’ lie. Thinking of ordering one of these every month to just have dinner for the week. And can I just say that I never once got tired of eating it? It really is addicting. It was even named as one of Oprah’s favorite (affordable) gifts. That’s definitely some fantastic celebrity backing. Be sure to check them out.

BTW, here’s a really fast gravy recipe. I concocted it when I realized that I wanted gravy for my turkey as I was eating it, so wanted something insanely fast to make.

Super fast gravy recipe

Ingredients

1 celery stalk diced

1 medium onion diced

1 can of chicken broth (the small ones, not big ones)

1 TBS butter

1-3 TBS of flour

Now What?

Melt the butter in the pan and sauté your celery and onion till soft, pour the broth over it and bring to a boil and then simmer for 10 minutes. Whisk in a TBS of flour in till you achieve the consistency that you want and serve.

Crap this was good. My mom loves cheesecake, but sometimes American versions are too heavy for her, so I found a recipe online for a ricotta cheesecake version that is amazing. There were some really complicated ones, but this one was doable with the amount of time that I had. It was so delicious and light. Slight sweet, but not heavy in anyway. Actually, when I started making it and beat the cream cheese and ricotta together, I was ready to just eat it out of the bowl like that. I mean come on now. Ricotta and cream cheese are like food porn on their own, but when you combine them, oh man! Everyone was raving about this cake, so I would definitely recommend make it for any occasion you have coming up, even if that occasion is you sitting at home watching Netflix.

See the original recipe post here, it was submitted to allrecipes.com by an April.

The only one difference that I did was that I baked it in a water bath to keep it from cracking. And remember the only difference is that when you are baking it, wrap the bottom of the pan with foil so that no liquids can go in. Place it in a baking tray, push into the oven and fill the tray with 1-2 inches of water.

I layered the top with fresh whipped cream, and as you can tell, I got a little carried away with the strawberries. If I knew a flower shape was forming, I would have made it cleaner and neater so that the whipped cream didn’t ooze out.

Oh and if you don’t know how to make fresh whipped cream, it’s so freaking easy. Get heavy whipping cream, add confectioners sugar to taste and beat until it turns into whipped cream. Easy, easy, easy.

-Joyce Huang

I don’t know if you guys know this, but in my younger years I was a vegetarian for a little bit. My first stint at it was for about 5 years, the second stint I did for a year until I was ready to eat meat again. Even now, the guilt of eating meat will get to me once in a while and when it does, I stock my fridge with a ton of vegetarian options. If you are a vegetarian or a vegan, be sure to check out May Wah Healthy Vegetarian Food Inc. in Chinatown. It’s not a huge grocery store, it’s about the size of a bodega, but they have really great options that makes giving up meat much more easier. Check out some of the items I purchased below and if it is actually worth the buy or not.

While not as good as the real thing, these vegan chicken nuggets were pretty good, considering what I thought they would be. A vegetarian friend of mine really enjoyed them since she never gets to eat real chicken nuggets any more. The texture really reminds me of chicken, and to get that more realistic touch, after defrosting in the microwave, take the time to crisp them up in a pan so that you get that crunch. And condiments, use your condiments!

Vegetarian ham is something that you don’t want to sandwich between bread, spread mustard over and eat. It’s just not good enough it be eaten that way. However, the way to go about eating this is to incorporate it into dishes and season, as you would regular meat. I.e. when I was younger my grandmother would slice this up and sauté with celery chunks, ginger, soy sauce and voila! Quite tasty when you cook it up as part of something else.

These mustard green dumplings are awesome. Even meat lovers will love them, they are just full of flavor and they use soy to add a meaty texture to them that is satisfying and tasty. I would serve these at any dinner. Mix up soysauce, a dash of sesame oil and crushed red pepper as a dipping sauce.

Skip these veggie burgers. The texture is rubbery, they smell funny and American veggie burgers are so much better.

I haven’t had a chance to dig into these citrus spare ribs just yet, but don’t they sound fantastic? I hope they are.

May Wah Vegetarian Market

213 Hester Street

New York, NY 10013

Spotted at Chef Ho’s in the Upper East Side

I got me some durian. Now I know, I know, Durians smell like ass. But if you end up loving the taste of it as much as I do, you won’t even notice the smell at all.

I feel really grateful, for all of the different food my family exposed to my taste buds while I was in the womb and growing up. It’s allowed to really enjoy all kinds of ingredients and dishes. If I have one of those kids who won’t eat and enjoy things like durian or stinky tofu I’m going to be a very upset parent. But I digress, sorry, I’m tired.

Durian is a very dangerous fruit. Actually, my memories of it are from Asian movies where someone would take a durian and smash someone’s head open with it. The outside is covered in sharp spikes that can cut through your skin if you aren’t careful. I always make sure to hold the durian down with a towel in my left hand and slice it open with a knife in my right hand. Inside there are sections filled with the edible and custard-like fruit, kind of similar to pods. Each custard ball had a seed in it, so make sure that you don’t bite into it.

The taste in incredibly unique. It tastes like a durian, just like milk tastes like milk and a banana tastes like a banana. It’s sweet, it’s very filling and hearty, and like I said already, it has a custard texture. Definitely not a fat-free fruit, so try not to overload on it if you are trying to lose weight.

The hardest part is really just getting over the smell of it, which is quite powerful. People I have lived with have had to leave the room and even apartment whenever I would eat it. Whatever. More stinky fruit for me.

The first time I tried fried shishito peppers was at Toro, one of my favorite restaurants in Boston. And since I’m all about cooking fast dishes at home, I knew this was going to be happening in my kitchen at some point. Easy peasy and it looks so fancy. And if you’re wondering where “Easy Peasy” came from, click here.

Ingredients

Shishito peppers

Fine sea salt

Oil for frying ( I had canola so used that)

Now What?

Wash the peppers and dry them extremely well. Always remember that water and hot oil are NOT a good match. Heat up enough oil to cover the peppers, once it’s nice and hot, you can dip a pepper in it to see if it sizzles, throw in the peppers. When they have blistered and darkened a tiny bit, take them out with a slotted spoon and place on paper towels so that the oil drains. Sprinkle with the fine sea salt and serve.

-Joyce Huang

Coconut macaroons aren’t something that I normally think of buying or eating. But that’s because I’ve never had a Danny Macaroon. Those suckers are freaking amazing. I’m eating a salted caramel one right now and am very happy that I don’t have to share it. Coconut macaroons, very different from French macarons, are these balls of shredded coconut that are held together by different binding ingredients, could be egg whites, condensed milk, etc. If you don’t like the nutty taste of coconut, you probably won’t like these babies, but seriously, Danny’s are something else.

You know what, I’m gonna’ have to take one more bite to figure out how to explain the taste of them. One sec.

Crap, they’re good.

Overall, the texture and base is amazing. The outside remains firm and has a slight crunch, while the insides are nice and soft. However the coconut does give you a bite back since it is slightly firm, so the insides aren’t mushy at all. As you keep chewing, the lovely sweetness and softness of it starts to remind me of the flavors of an egg custard. Again, so good! My extremely thoughtful friend sent me chocolate dipped, plain, salted caramel, roasted almond, Baileys McRoon and Pumpkin Spice. My favorites are definitely the chocolate dipped, plain and salted caramel, but they are all wonderful. The salted caramel tastes like it has a toffee topping. The Baileys one gives you a strong hit of alcohol, definitely for grown ups. And apparently there is even a red velvet macaroon, which is one that I definitely want to try.

Will definitely be getting some more for me, and as gifts for loved ones.

9 out of 10

dannymacaroons.com for locations

-Joyce Huang

You know me, I love easy dishes that taste incredible. Here are two side dishes that pack a lot of punch for very little work.

I can never get enough of arugula. Raw or sautéed, the flavor is so tasty and peppery. I like to keep it very simple though because I love the actual flavor of arugula so much. When raw, I love just drizzling it with lemon juice, good olive oil and I’ll give it a sprinkling of sea salt and give it some shavings of a cheese like parmesan or pecorino. When cooking it, just sauté it quickly in some oil and when it is all wilted, but still a nice bright green, you’re done. Toss it with salt, top with cheese shavings or eat as is. Sauteed arugula is so freaking good. The texture is nice, filling and great to bite into. Serve it when you don’t want to do your normal spinach side dish.

Now for this dish, you really need to make a trip to your local Asian supermarket. Go to the snack aisle and pick up bags of chili peanuts to keep in your cupboards.  All you have to do is start sautéing your green beans in oil, and when the outsides look slightly cooked, throw in the chili peanuts. It will infuse the veggi e beautifully and make it nice and spicy. The peanuts will also get a nice char and crisp to them. People will think this is a fancy dish since they won’t realize that you just threw in chili peanuts in. I stole this idea from my grandmother.

I know, I know, I’ve been a bad blogger. But I have good personal reasons for it:). Lets just do a quick food porn re-cap of what I’ve been eating, because that’s what blogs are for anyway: Self-Indulgence.

Who doesn’t love Shake Shack? I love it so much I made it a double.

Of course you need fries with that, cheese fries to be exact.

And I must top it off with something sweet, otherwise I won’t know it’s time to stop eating.

Again, I am not allowed to go food shopping when I am hungry. Here we have a Big Mac, chicken nuggets, fries, soda, hot fudge sundae, crab rangoon, fried chicken wings and an egg roll.

I dabbled in some Redbones BBQ in Boston. My fave was the Arkansas style.

On the way back to the South Station terminal, some Pho Pasteur Chow Fun noodles to tide me over.

And when in NYC, you gotta get your Doughnut Plant fix. Blackout, tres leches and creme brulee.

Some Pig in a Poke at Tipsy Parson? Don’t mind if I do.

Soft serve ice cream is one of my fave treats to eat. And for some reason I crave ice cream more when it’s cold out.

And may I sound like Joey from friends, but a damn good sandwich just makes me so happy. There is something that I find about NYC deli and bodega sandwiches that I find incredibly satisfying. I always get mine on a hero, not roll.

Have a lot of rye bread in my apartment right now, and therefore have been eating lots of smoked salmon sandwiches.

Again…what did I say about me not being allowed to be too hungry when ordering.

-Joyce Huang