The true poached egg, part 1

Let me admit, I have egg on my face. I got into a discussion with Steve about poached eggs and he thought it was an egg cooked in water, whereas I thought it was an egg cooked in a poaching "cup". My mom used to have an insert that held four cups over a frying pan, letting the eggs cook via steam.

But true poached eggs are cooked directly in water. The steamed variant has become popular and is now commonly called a poached egg, hence the confusion. As I discovered, true poached eggs take some practice, so the poaching cup is a welcome face saver. To help keep the egg together in the boiling water, two tricks are (a) put some vinegar in the water, which hastens the solidification of the whites, or (b) create a vortex in the middle of the pan, by spinning the water. I liked the idea of poaching, because it is healthier and you can get a runny yolk that has been uniformly heated.

I tried making a vortex the first time, aka the "spinney" method and it was miserable failure, partly because I hadn't brought the water to a full boil before hand. The egg was also still a bit cold, so it handily dispersed into the swirling water into an embarassing egg cloud. After 45 seconds, I removed what remained of the egg (about 50% of the white with the intact yolk). I had found a fine sieve cleaning out a kitchen drawer yesterday, so I used it to scoop almost all of the remaining egg white. And then the water really started to boil, and the remaining 3% of white solidified and puffed up like a meringue. It was a bit surprising to see how much volume those dregs of egg white could produce. After more scooping, I finally had a relatively clear pan of water for try 2.

I added a bit of vinegar, brought the water to a boil, lowered the heat and slide the egg in from a bowl. And once again, slivery tendrils formed as the white spread. But what else could I do, so I let it cook. After about a minute or so, I carefully removed the egg, which was about 80% of the white around a soft yolk. It really was most of the egg. And I realized that this is maybe what they do at restaurants. If you lose 20% of the white, the customer isn't any wiser for it. Anyways, the next time, I'll put the egg in a ladle and let it solidify a bit in the ladle before letting it loose.

During this time, I also snuck the remainder of the first egg back in to cook it a bit more, since it was still a bit underdone. I put the two eggs on a thick slice of toasted rosemary potato bread, topped it with some sliced havarti and smoked gouda (which came presliced from Costco) and cut up some ripe Early girls from the garden.

It didn't seem like a premier sandwich. And the egg dripped all over the plate. But the tomatoes were superbly juicy and sweet, and the cheese added a rich almost buttery taste. All in all, a messy but delicious sandwich.

Messy, badly poached egg
(I haven't perfected this recipe, so follow at your own risk)

1 egg

Break egg into a bowl or a ladle. Bring a pan of water to a healthy boil and add a dash of vinegar. Lower the heat so the water is fairly calm.

Slide the egg as gently as possible into the water. Optionally put the egg in a ladle and let it firm up before letting it go. Some of the white will start to separate. Ignore this. Simmer until the white is done, but the yolk is still runny. Remove with a slotted spoon. Serve immediately.

Sage corn dumplings

Let it be stated that dumplings are my wife's family recipe. Not mine. Their holiday tradition on Christmas eve is to have shrimp/egg salad, fresh mushroom soup, some salad and vegetables, and of course dumplings. At this point I've had countless of these meals (mostly because I can't count).

The shrimp salad has varied from good, to fantastic. One time they had to use langosteens instead of shrimp, with great results. My brother, Ted, was raving about this years afterward.

The mushroom soup is a rich, hearty cream of mushroom soup. Start with Campbell's cream of mushroom and then add lots of fresh cooked mushrooms. Don't be too fancy, just use the standard white button mushroom and perhaps some creminis. And don't forget the butter.

But it was always the dumplings that were the heart of the meal. However, flour is one thing I just haven't cooked with much, and so it was a challenging and daunting recipe for me to even contemplate. I mean, the ingredient list is enough to scare off anybody sane: flour, eggs and that hard-to-find milk. The eggs shouldn't be from any old animal, but should be from the elusive "chicken". Good luck finding those! And the cooking process requires years of practice to learn how to boil balls of dough in water. Yeah ... right.

To make matters worse, Sarah's mom visited and a friend of ours had these dumplings 5 years ago and has raved about them ever since, begging us to make them again. Of course, not knowing the secret to this rare and mysterious dish, I could only return her helpless pleadings with a blank, clueless look.

It was two or three Christmas Eve's ago that I had finally had enough. Butter that is. You see, Sarah's parents fry the dumplings in butter for a one reason. Lots of butter. So the dumplings just become conduits for butter and salt. They taste great, but they were just too rich for me. So the next time I had them I vowed to have some plain, un-butterfied ones. And they were fine, though a little on the plain side. So the next time I visited, I tried frying the dumplings for a good long time, so they would get a nice browned butter crispness. And that was very tasty, though still too rich.

(Pictured: corn sage dumplings just out of the boiling water, waiting to be fried up. The pan is a Scan Pan, which is partially non-stick but can be cleaned with steel wool. The grass is watered 3 times a week.)

The breakthroughs came in a hurry, over the last 4 month interval, when we were visiting her parents place regularly. (1) Use olive oil instead of butter, which does not make the food seem so over-the-top rich. And it fries a bit better than butter. This was a smashing success. (2) Let's add some fresh herbs to the dumplings. The first time I tried rosemary and basil. The rosemary was quite nice but the basil washed out completely in the process of boiling, which I suspected it would. At home, I dared to make these dumplings on my own and then tried sage which was surprisingly good. (3) I've begun using a lot of fresh corn cut from the cob and inspired by recipes from the cafe at work, I tried adding fresh corn to the batter.

Voila! A true masterpiece. If you only try one recipe from my blog this is the one I recommend.

Sage corn dumplings
(Serves 4 to 6)

3 eggs, free range if possible
1/2 cup of milk, I use 2%
1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups of white flour
salt and pepper
medium handful of fresh sage leaves
2 ears of fresh corn, roughly 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 cups of corn
olive oil, for frying

Crack eggs in a large mixing bowl. Add milk. Beat eggs and add salt and pepper to taste. Add flour in 1/3 cup increments, mixing until the flour is fully absorbed, before adding more. This is neither a careful process nor a super fast process. Smooth out any large flour lumps, if necessary. The resulting dough should be a very thick sticky liquid. If it feels more like a solid, aka, you wet loaf of bread, add a bit more milk until the mixture thins out. It does not take much milk.

(Pictured: dumpling mixture with lots of corn and sage. The Domain Mourchon was a winery we actually visited on bike after a steep climb (according to my wife), and was a Wine Spectator 91, but I found it thick, dense but not that interesting, perhaps needing some more time. The Quivira was a good solid Zin.)

Wash sage and chop into small pieces. Cut corn off the cob. Add sage and corn to the dumpling mixture and mix into. This will roughly double the volume of the mixture.

Bring a large 4-8 quart pot of water to a boil, optionally using the corn cobs to flavor the water, which are then removed. Spoon dumpling mixture with teaspoons into boiling water. When the dumplings have been floating for 45-60 seconds they are done. Remove dumplings and drain.

Heat a frying pan with a thin layer of olive oil. When the oil is hot (a water drop splatters), add dumplings. Fry for a minute or so until the bottom side is browned. Turn dumplings and repeat until dumplings are browned to your satisfaction.

Serve as is with salt and pepper, or with a country gravy.

(Pictured: caprese salad with sun gold tomatoes, Costco rotisserie chicken, corn and sage dumplings, described in this article, mushroom chicken gravy and a date, orange, kumquat salad of arugula topped with Parmesan.)

Smoky red beans and rice

(Pictured: early girl tomatos, smoked Creole sausage from Ditmers, spices, green zebras, Ridge 2005 Carignane, which had a marvelous raspberry note in a smooth refined body, garlic, hot peppers, a Wusthof paring knife, some left over Tourist wurst, yellow onion whole and chopped.)

Let me admit this recipe, OK, multi-year obsession, started because of Popeye's Red Beans and Rice. Yes, Popeye's, the fried chicken chain that serves southern fast food. Greasy, not so healthy fast food. Comes to the restaurant in a mix in a box or a bag, so the staff can make it on the spot, fast food. But tasty, tasty, the best darn chicken and red-beans-n-rice fast food.

This recipe is really an odyssey, capturing a non-negligible(*) fraction of my cooking knowledge and time. It represents a pursuit of the unattainable, unless you have the $2.50 to actually order their red beans and rice, assuming you can find a Popeye's. (* Non-negligible is one of those precisely vague words scientists use to to mean some amount that cannot be ignored, but otherwise cannot be quantified. It's a word I used to use a lot. Now I only use it a negligible amount.)

It was many years ago that Steve took me to the now defunct East Palo Alto Popeye's. I innocently ordered the red beans and rice with my order. And it nearly ruined my life. That smokey, creamy, salty, smoked meat flavor blew me away. I had to have it again. But I shortly moved away to a spot in the Midwest where there were no Popeye's nearby.

So, after moaning about it for a few years, I started to try to recreate that dang recipe, working from memory. And I learned a thing or two. Firstly, red beans are not trivially available. You can find all sorts of other beans such as kidney beans, pinto beans, black eyed pea beans, just plain black beans, great white northern beans and even navy beans, but small red beans are a bit of exception. After a bit of searching, I did find them at one grocery store (Marsh), in a can. And you can usually find them dried. How important is it to use red beans rather than say pinto beans? Very important. You know why... because the recipe is called red beans. Would you make soy sauce without soy? I thought so.

(The picture shows beans I bought from Pak-N-Save. I've elegantly marked the beans 07/07 indicating when I bought them, since things have a way of aging in my pantry unbeknownst to me. The Beringer Chardonnay at $22 was pricey but quite nice, and Wine Spectator agreed giving it 92 points.)

Beans present an interesting dilemma. Canned beans are convenient. Just open can after can, rinse, rinse again, and then rinse a third time and cook. However, dried beans are the way of a true cook. There is greater variety to be had. And they are cheaper but have to be soaked. And I found the overnight soak method sucks. I still have to cook the things for 3+ hours. However the quick soak method of bringing the beans and lots of water to a boil for a minute or two, and then letting it sit for an hour or two works nicely. After the quick soak, you only have cook them for 2+ hours. So that's what I do, even if I have planned ahead and could do the overnight soak.

Anyways, back to my odyessy. The main challenge was to get the smoky, salty flavor. Sausage is key and I've played around with many variations. I just love hot Italian in general, so it's hard to resist but it's not the right flavor for this dish. Linguica is pretty good, but not quite there. Hot dogs... let's be real, we're trying to recreate a masterpiece from Popeye's so we can't be using any old sausage. Bacon, again, isn't quite right, being a bit one dimensional on smoky. I finally settle on bratwurst, as in the kind Johnston's makes, which is available pretty much anywhere. This is a raw pork sausage, not the white sausage I've sometimes seen called bratwurst.

I cooked this recipe maybe 10 to 12 times. A few times I experimented with Liquid Smoke. Man, is that stuff vile. It smells nice in dilute quantities, but up close, it's nasty stuff on both the nose and the palate. It's a big smoke and mirrors game with chemicals.

By the fourth or fifth time of cooking it, the beans were pretty darn tasty. I could invite people over and trust making it the main dish. While I hadn't quite reached the pinnacle of Popeye's, it was a fine dish nonetheless.

And then on a trip to Chicago, I noticed a Popeye's on the interstate. We had to stop there on the way back. And 4 years after my initial Popeye's experience I finally got to retaste my beloved smoky creamy red beans. And ... mine were better! Way, way better! The Popeye's beans were still tasty, but they tasted like fantastic red beans pre-made in huge quantities using smoke and mirrors and grease and then shipped in a bag that you could still taste. There was no actual meat in them, too. Huh? And the smokey taste was kinda fake. It's like finding out your Hollywood idol ... well you know the analogy.

And so I kept making my red beans. And also ordering it from Popeye's whenever we visited Chicago. I recall ordering 4 big orders with no rice to go, which I would take back in the car in our 2 hour ride. And immediately making a pot of rice when I got home to eat those mass vat produced red beans as freshly as possible.

I also had a chance to visit New Orleans for Jazz fest a year or so later. This was exciting, as I got to taste the real deal, not some Popeye's "mockery" of the real deal. We went to a fine restaurant serving real Cajun food. And the red beans and rice was just terrible. I may not have even finished it all. Apparently authentic red beans and rice is a very bland dish to compliment the rest of the meal. Sausage flavor? Nope, unless they waved the andouille sausage near the 5 gallon pot of unflavored beans. Smokey? Nope, unless the chef lit up a Marlboro. Salty? Not a lick. (Get the pun?) It was blandsville followed by boredom. What the heck!?

Meanwhile I kept making a pot of my faux Popeye's red beans. And eventually, I found myself thanking Popeye's for making me chase after my faulty mental recollection of a mythical dish, which was really a gross distortion of the real deal. And after my red bean journey, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Smoky southern red beans
(Serves 6 to 12)

The quantities are approximate on purpose as there is a lot of latitude in making this dish.

16-32 oz dried small red beans or 48-64 oz canned red beans16 to 32 oz of chicken broth
16 to 32 oz canned whole, sliced or diced tomatoes of any formsalt
pepper

1/2 to 2 lbs of sausage, bratwurst or Cajun or creole or even Italian

2 tbs vegetable oil
(optional) 3 tbs Cajun seasoning, such as Paul Prudhomme
(optional) handful Chili power which is a mixture of cumin, chilies, onion and more
1 or 2 yellow or white onions
1/2 to 2 cloves of garlic
(optional) hot peppers or hot chile powder, your choice
(optional) celery leaves from the top of the stalks.

Quick soak dry beans. Drain and rinse the beans until the water is clear.

In a large pot, add the beans and chicken stock and tomatoes, not quite covering the beans. Bring to a boil and then let simmer, while preparing the remaining ingredients.

Fry up sausage if raw. Drain some of the fat away with a paper towel. Dump sausage into bean pot.

Chop up onion into small pieces. Smash garlic, remove skins and end bits. Chop coarsely. Heat oil or remaining sausage grease in a frying pan until hot and add spices for 15-30 seconds and then the garlic. Cook for 30 seconds; do not cook until it is brown. Add onions and cook until they are soft, perhaps 3 minutes. If you have hot peppers and/or celery leaves, bring the heat up back to med high and add the them to the spice-garlic-onion mix for 30 seconds until they start to release their oils. Dump the mixture into the bean/sausage pot.

Salt and pepper beans to taste. I like to add a good bit of salt. Add bay leaves.
Simmer beans until tender, which can take longer than expected, sometimes 3 hours. Optionally mash some beans against the side of the pan to thicken the sauce near the end.

Serve as is, over rice, over pasta or with hot buttered bread. Optionally top with freshly sliced tomatoes.

(Pictured: egg noodles, smoky red beans, 1.75 cups of green zebra tomatoes with di bufala mozzarella in an elegant serving dish. The Thorn Clarke 2005 Cab had a strong vegetal taste along with the ripe elegant fruit, making for a memorable wine.)

The first decision before starting to cook

Let's set the ground rules. You've picked out the recipe, and bought the ingredients. Now it's time to start the actual cooking. What's the first important decision you have? I'll make it easier by giving you three guesses.

1. What is the order you'll prepare the ingredients?
2. How are you going to manage your kitchen space, utensils and pots/pans?
3. What wine are you going to drink while cooking?
   

I almost always cook to a red wine. And since I'm not really pairing it with food, I go for a bold, fruity wine that keeps my interest on each sip. For me that means Shiraz or Zinfandel. I'd go

Last night as I cooked my all in spaghetti with smoked sausage, peas and egg, I chose a high end wine. The Orin Swift 2005 Prisoner, which is an unusual blend of Zin, Cab, Syrah, Petite Sirah and Charbono. It was quite nice but didn't live up to it's Wine Spectator 93 point expectations.
See my wine blog for lots more on wine.

Corn chowder in the 21st century

The alternative title was "A Tale of Two Corn Chowders"

Let me admit, I'm a sucker for chowders. Creamy clam chowder in a bowl of ceramic or even sour dough. Or a thick corn chowder is hard to beat. The few constants are: a creamy thick texture, some potatoes and good amounts of bacon and onion to augment the clams or corn.

Two weeks ago, I had made a creamy, but not thick, leek corn chowder whose main ingredients looked like this.



It was pretty good. My guidance was from the Chez Panisse (CP)cookbook and the Charlie Trotter's (CT) cookbook. Both restaurants have won the best restaurant in America honor in their past, so these recipes from Alice and Charlie are not to be taken lightly. But the recipes could not be more different. The CP recipe was a showcase for corn itself, and consisted of basically water, onions, corn cooked with some pureed, and salt. The CT recipe was a much more traditional hearty chowder, with bacon, potatoes, corn, heavy cream and water. I really liked that the Trotter recipe simmered the left over cops to enhance the broth.



This time, I had a lot more corn. And one of the guests had a mild wheat allergy and would occasionally minimize her wheat consumption. I was debating whether to make a thicker, cream base soup or keep it unadorned. Thick means flour which means wheat, which I decided to eschew. Plain was the choice. It would be Chez Panisse style soup this time, all about the corn.

I wanted strong corn flavor, so I used a lot of fresh corn, which also gave me many cobs to cook for a strong broth. I was uncertain about using bacon, since it is easy to over use, but Sarah's emphatic "Lot of bacon", swung the tide. I had fresh yellow potatoes (Yukon?) from the market and so we got potatoes.

I wanted the corn as tender as possible so I cooked it at the very end in the final broth, heeding Alice Water's advice not to overcook it. It looked more red than I expected due to the bacon. The soup was quite nice; the broth itself was super with lots of nice sweet corn flavor.

Some other options I might want to try would be to add a fresh herb, say either rosemary or sage.

Corn Chowder Soup

(Serves 8)

5-8 ears of fresh corn
3-6 small-medium potatoes, chopped into small (say 1/2") pieces
8 oz of bacon, cut into small pieces
1 white or non-sweet yellow onion
salt and pepper

Cut the corn off the cobs and reserve in a bowl. (I do this over a large flexible cutting board as the corn tends to spray all over the place). Place corn cobs in a large pan with water such that the cobs are covered. Bring to a boil and then simmer the cobs for 30-60 minutes, or really, as long as it takes for you to get your act together and finish the rest of the recipe. You may have to add more water.

Slice up bacon into mini sized pieces (I use scissors) and optionally remove any excess fat (still using those scissors). Cook bacon in pan, until barely done. Remove excess fat. Slice potatoes and onion into small pieces and cook with the bacon over low heat, covered, until the potatoes are done, perhaps 10 minutes.

Remove cobs from the broth and then add bacon, onions and potatoes to the broth. Salt and pepper to taste. Add cut corn and return to a boil, cooking the corn for 2-3 minutes, until cooked. Serve.

Majestic beet greens

Let's suppose your wish as a cook/food blogger comes true. What would that be? Perhaps to write a cookbook or two or maybe even 101 of them? Maybe a chance to work in a fine restaurant? Or perhaps eat there for free courtesy of the owner?

My wish is to invent (or is it discover) new recipes that gain a following. The hard part is finding a new recipe. With all the cooks out there, pretty much everything simple has been tried. For example, bacon wrapped dates were a stroke of genius. Perhaps it is the "bad" cooks who cause much of the challenge, as even deep fried Twinkies have been "discovered".

My discovery follows in the vein of the great discoveries of penicillin and cheese. Namely, there was spoilage. Several years back, I bought some beets and they sat in the refrigerator for a tad longer than USDA would recommend. However, I needed some greens for my meal and I looked at my wilted, tired, decaying beet greens with sadness. So with desperation and a dash of self-anger, I picked through the greens salvaging whatever I could. A good fifth of the leaves were complete mush and had to be tossed. Another third of the leaves had to be pruned or cropped, as I cut away the spoiled bits. None of the leaves were fresh anymore. There were spots appearing and their texture had a toughness from age. I definitely wasn't going to tell Sarah what shape these greens were in.

I chopped them up, threw them in a pan with some butter and salt and cooked them. Then I added more butter just for good measure. The rest of the items in that meal, I don't remember, but the beet greens I do.

There was a sublime richness due to the greens and the butter interacting beautifully, along with a the hearty earthy flavors of the greens. I was blown away, as was my wife. Holy crap, were they good. One of the nicest dishes of cooked greens in my life.

I subsequently bought beet greens and cooked them up fresh. The leaves were all a beautiful spring green. And ...nothing. They were OK, but nothing special. I started to hypothesize that maybe the greens need to be spoiling, but it has taken me two years to finally retry that experiment. Yesterday was the day.



I had bought greens from the farmers market. Two weeks ago. A full beet is pretty big so I had used two plastic bags to cover each half but the bags had gotten a bit separated. What I pulled out was an even uglier sight than the original. A 30 inch long mass of mess. I tossed about half the leaves and pruned another fifth. (The picture above shows the greens I tossed. That dark color is from getting old, not cooking. There was one fresh leaf among the bad ones... can you tell which one?) This time I also smelled the rotting leaves. It was salty and minerally in a good way. Interesting. And when I cooked them up this time, I was more sparse on the butter. But the verdict is in, my first recipe discovery is Majestic rotten beet greens. Yumm...


Buying beet greens is an adventure in and of itself. Mostly because you're buying garbage. In that most people just want the beets a throw away the greens. I buy my greens at the Mountain View Farmers Market (pictured). On one occasion, a woman bought beets and so did I. I then asked if she wanted the greens and of course she didn't. So we swapped. My beets for her greens.

On another occasion, the person before me bought 2 bunches of beets and the vendor immediately cut off the greens and threw them into their box of unwanted produce garbage. Now one thing I've learned is that asking for free food from a farmer's market stall, in part so I don't have to buy anything does not result a smile. So I bought some beets and then asked the vendor if I could have the greens he just threw in the garbage. Puzzled he asked "you want this?" Oh, the adventure in the hunt for unwanted greens.

Majestic Rotten Beet Greens

Bunch of beet greens, that are not remotely fresh
Butter
Salt

Sift through the greens throwing away as little as you can stand. I personally discard mush and parts of leaves that have turned fairly dark brown or worse. Cut off the (red) stems.

Heat a large frying pan and add enough butter to form a thin layer, say 1 tbsp. When butter is hot, put the stems in the pan and cook for 1 minute over medium high heat. Add more butter if desired and wait for it to melt. Add leaves and toss until they start to wilt, perhaps 60 seconds. Salt if desired. Turn heat on low and cover the pan for 3-5 minutes.

The egg muffin

Let's get this out in the open right at the start. The Egg McMuffin sans the "cheese" is a terrific egg breakfast sandwich. I've had maybe 20 to 30 of these over the last decade. At their best, the egg has exploded into a moist, steamy mass of goodness, not easily reproduced at home. The rest of the sandwich is pedestrian, but who cares when the egg is that good. At their worst, well let's just say, it is a good thing they are under $2 each.

(In the picture, that is a bite mark. This shows how the kitchen might look, instead of the standard pretty girl photos you see on food blogs.)

Which brings me to my other problem... the "cheese". I detest American cheese-like food product, which is conveniently used in roughly 99.5% of the commercial inexpensive recipes involving melted cheese. Fast food cheese burgers, fast food tacos, cheesy nachos, or grilled cheese sandwiches... I lose. Even this "marria" from another food blog has willfully chosen to use American cheese over all others, blanketing an otherwise fine egg. I've been known to pick the cheese off a Burger King cheeseburger I inadvertently obtained. Gross stuff! Now, if Mc Donald's served real cheddar with the Egg McMuffin, that would be a truly great sandwich for $2.

And then, there is Velveeta. What the heck is this stuff!? They don't even put the word cheese or food on the packaging. Apparently the standard American cheese-like product wasn't fake enough, so they invented a faux fake-cheese that as far as I can tell, they can extrude from a fallow plastic factory.

So what happens if I make a breakfast sandwich at home? Well let's go over the options and food choices one by one.

A bagel or an english muffin: I like the bread to have some texture and to hold up to the egg payload.

Egg: free range if possible. I typically get mine from Trader Joes, since they have a wide variety for reasonable prices. Also if you keep your eggs for a while like I do, know the the egg test for freshness. Put an egg in a tallish glass of water; if it floats, the egg is old and should only be used as a supporting role in recipes (cake mix, cookies, meat balls, or if you're going to cover it with American cheese, etc). However, if it sinks quickly, that's one fresh egg.

Cheese (optional): any real cheese, say cheddar, swiss, Gruyere, or even jack.

Bacon or other cured meat (optional): here I'm not so picky. You do need either cheese or meat, or even both.

Tomato: a nice slice of a non-hot house, non mass produced tomato.

The Egg Sandwich
(serves 1/2 to 1 person)

1 English muffin or plain/egg bagel
1 egg
1 slice bacon
1 slice real cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Toast muffin or bagel.

If using bacon, fry bacon in a pan until the desired doneness. Remove and drain on paper towels.

Heat frying pan to high and either use some of the remaining bacon fat or vegetable oil. Crack egg into the pan, taking care not to break the yoke. Wait for the egg whites to firm up and then flip if desired, though this might break the yoke. Egg should be crispy on the initial bottom side. When the egg is done remove from the pan and place on muffin. Do not let sit in the pan as this will dry the egg out. Top with bacon, cheese and a fresh slice of tomato.

Caprese salad

Let me unequivocally state: nothing signifies summer more than an abundance of ripe tomatoes of every color, shape and size. My dish of choice is the caprese salad, originally from Capri, which I'll eat easily 20-30 times over the summer. It fundamentally consists of mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, fresh basil, olive oil and salt + pepper. It's an explosion of tangy, sweet, acidic, spicy, rich and fresh tastes. It sounds simple and it is. But it does not have to be (yes, you read that right). Like any fresh dish, the ingredients really matter, and here things get not so simple, if you want to do it right.

I first had this dish in Italy, appropriately about 6 years ago. It made quite an impression, largely due to the cheese. It's funny that it was a such a novelty to me then, but now I seem to see it on most menus at Italian restaurants, so it's hard to imagine anybody not knowing about this.

Tomatoes: there is sooo much that can be discussed, that it will have to be a future column. But let's start with the basics. Start with a home grown or non-hothouse tomato. Farmers markets or produce markets are your best bet. (Of course growing your own is the best, if that possible.) There are many hundreds of varieties of tomatoes, so experiment with tomatoes to see which ones you like. For this salad, I like tomatoes that are sweet but still have some acidity and flavor. My choices (partly because I am growing these) are the ever present Early Girl, the late ripening scarred Brandywine and cherry tomatoes, particularly the yellow varieties such as Sun Golds. I also like the tangyness of the golf ball sized Green Zebras. I have not found a large green, orange or yellow tomato that I like; they look nice but have minimal taste, so I skip these.

If you must buy bulk tomatoes, say from Costco, buy the large golf ball sized reds that still come on the vine, in bunches of six or so. These will do in an emergency.

Under no circumstances use a Roma or plum tomato, which are flavor challenged. I hypothesize that Romas were bred solely because the tomato is so physically robust that it can ripen and still be transported without breaking.

Mozzarella: It has to be fresh mozzarella, meaning it has a pure white color with a wet clay consistency and is packed in salt water. It cannot be the ubiquitous dried rubbery ball that you slice up and typically put on pizza. During the summer and fall months, Costco sells fresh cows milk mozzarella in 3 packs each slightly smaller than a baseball for $5-6 total, which is my first choice. Good fresh mozzarella will have a nice creamy texture and flavor. I don't buy little fresh balls in a seasoned olive oil, as you're paying for seasoned oil and the cheese isn't as good.

Even among fresh mozzarella, there is a difference between hand made and machine made. Hand made will be softer and creamier, and if only a few days old will be fairly liquidy on the inside. After you cut a ball in half, it will start to ooze out. Machine made cheeses have been handled more roughly and are stiffer, so there will be none of the desired oozing.

But the real deal, if you can find it is fresh water buffalo's milk mozzarella, know as di bufala. This was the cheese I fell in love with in Italy. I has a tangy, salty flavor the cows milk is missing. I hunt for this throughout the year. Costco has been know to occasionally carry it. I probably saw it a total of 6 times over the last 3 years.

So imagine my surprise to see it, and a very good di bufala product at that, at my local Costco about a month ago. And my wife casually says, "Oh, yeah, they've been carrying that for a little while now." Argh, she can be so annoying at times... The good news is that I've seen di bufala in many different Costcos since June 2007. It sells out but they seem to have more coming in each week.

Olive Oil: Use the best oil you can afford. Of course it has to be extra virgin olive oil (EVOO). If you were considering otherwise, please stop reading and never visit this or any other food blog again.

I've done olive oil tastings and I have a hard time discerning among good EVOOs. Given the large range in cost, say between $3 to $25 for 12 oz for EVOO, I aim for the low end of that range around $5-7. My favorite EVOOs are from Trader Joes, since they have a good selection of inexpensive choices. I like the Greek Kalamata oil. But my current favorite is the Italian Monte Pollino at $6.

I personally avoid the Bertolli EVOO found in Costco or elsewhere, as it is just everywhere. My snobby side, says it just can't be that good, especially since they make many lower grades of of olive oil. And make sure the EVOO you buy has a "use by" date on it. Reputable makers give EVOO roughly a year to 18 months from pressing for the best taste.

Basil: Fresh leaves, ideally just picked off a live plant. Otherwise, fresh leaves from a plant that was cut down today.

Many places sell a live plant for $4-8. The secret to growing basil in the summer is (1) keep it in the shade, which keeps the leaves much younger and more tender and (2) pluck off any white flowers once you see them. The plant wants to reproduce and once it has done so, turns much tougher. The early spring growth is the best and by keeping the plant cooler in the shade, and somewhat well watered, the plant keeps its spring feel.

So we've come to the end of the not-so-simple caprese salad. Almost. There are many variations on the salad and eating options, such as

• use a bit of good balsamic vinegar. I used to do this until a year ago, when I had it without balsamic at a restaurant. Balsamic adds a nice taste but tends to over power the salad. Now, 80% of the time it is just EVOO and 20% I add balsamic too. Your call and apparently this is subject to debate. I
  
• have it with a nice crusty bread. Near the end of a large salad, there is often a good bit of tomato juice, EVOO, possibly balsamic, which is a wonderful bread dip.
• add some minced garlic or chopped capers, freshly grated parmesan, or perhaps some fresh unsalted anchovies. I don't do this but it's your salad and you can ruin it however you wish.
• add some minced fresh herbs such as oregano or well ... actually, that's the only one I can recommend.
  

Caprese Salad

Tomatoes, preferably home grown or heirloom
Fresh mozzarella cheese
Extra virgin olive oil
2-6 basil leaves

Slice the mozzarella thinly (slightly thinner than the tomato slices) and arrange. Drizzle EVOO over each layer of cheese, if desired, to prevent it from sticking to each other.
Slice larger tomatoes into (large) bite-sized slices. Cut cherry tomatoes in half. Place over the cheese. Salt and pepper as desired. Wash and dry basil and then slice into wispy strands and sprinkle over the tomatoes.

Eat with toasted bread or with a spoon.

Let's get started

Welcome to my food blog. Like the kazillion other food blogs out there, it is about all aspects of food. Growing (some of) it, finding it, buying it, cooking it and of course eating it. While I'm ethnically Chinese, my cooking interests lie much more in Italian, French country and American cuisine.

One of my rants against the very high end cookbooks is the insistance on impossible to get, fresh ingredients. I cannot easily get freshly picked fava beans or a just butchered free-range chicken. So one of my goals is to use somewhat readily available foods, yet keeping the quality as high as possible. I live and work in Silicon Valley which affords me pretty good access to food. If nothing else, the Costcos, Trader Joes and grocery stores have decent selection. Like most amateur cooks, my focus is on things you can hopefully find, buy and make yourself. That said, during the summer, if you find a farmer's market, you should be able to get high quality fresh foods, albiet a bit expensive.

I'm not a recipe follower. When cooking, I like to find several recipes for that dish, and try to comprehend what is going on. Then I just launch into my own creating, often dictated by what ingredients I have on hand. Sometimes I end up pretty much following a recipe, othertimes, I'm off in ad hoc cookery.

Finally, hopefully you have noticed my blog name is pure punishment. What does the title make you think of? For me it's a hamburger. Which when done right, is a sublime meal in and of itself.