One Syringe of Khalua with My Donut
My nephew and I have a tradition of fancy deserts following whatever dinner I make him when he comes over. Usually I try new desert recipes but my go-to for when I'm lazy is two or three donuts from Bun Apetit. They have some interesting and experimental donut concoctions, but this one was the wildest yet: coffee cream with a tiny plastic syringe of khalua.
This was rigged to not get any of the khalua in the donut, but it didn't matter because I let my nephew have a itty bitty drip from the syringe anyway. I am, afterall, "The Peoples' Mamu."
Kaiserschmarren
I'm always up for a new type of pancake, and this Austrian "torn pancake" is one of my new favorites. You basically make a giant pancake, chop it up in the pan when it's mostly cooked, and add some butter and sugar to fry them crisp to your liking. Bite-sized pancakes that everyone can share!
J.Kenji Lopez-Alt Ultimatest Sliders
Caramelized onions and a quick steaming step make these my new favorite way to burger. Yes, I even like them more than smash burgers, and they're less fussy because I can make four in a pan at once.
Szechuan Gochujang Soy Sauce Chicken Wings
I started making this:
Instant Pot Soy Sauce Chicken Rice
But midway through (before I'd reached high pressure), I decided to switch to this:
Korean Gochujang Sticky Chicken Wings
And thus was birthed into this world Szecuhan Gochujang Soy Sauce Chicken Wings.
Szechuan peppercorns go well with Gochujang it turns out, and I also dumped in a tremendous amount of Gochugaru. I also quickly broiled up some broccolini loosely coated with some of the remaining glaze and put some of that very glaze on top of rice.
"Mongolian Ground Beef"
I wouldn't really call this "Mongolian Beef" but it is one of my new favorite ways to make a quick ground beef/pork/whatever dinner. It does have the general flavor profile of Mongolian beef, and I upped the spice level with a whole lot of Korean Gochugaru chili flakes, and I dumped a bunch of random stuff from my fridge in like peppers and bamboo, and I served it over fluffy coconut milk rice. It was even better after a day in the fridge!
From one of my favorite YouTube cooking channels. I sometimes wish I could talk English like Aaron and make orgasmic hooting sounds like Claire.
Ethical Clothing Begins with Ethical Underwear
I previously practiced the most ethical form of clothing there is: just not buying any clothes even when holes appear in inconvenient places. But now that life has caught up with me and I find myself wanting to dress less bum and more established gentleman, I've decided to make ethical clothing purchases [begin virtue signaling]while fully aware that I am lucky enough to have the means to do so[end virtue signaling].
I have been presented from a trusted source with the following brands as ethical options:
- Patagonia
- Prana
- Eco-stylist
- Fair indigo
- Give a Damn Goods
- Groceries Apparel
- Indigenous
- Known Supply
- Ministry of Supply
- Passion Lilie
- Krochet Kids
- The Good Tee
- Thought
- United by Blue
- Pact
- Opok
- Asket
- Ably
- Reflo
- Faherty
- Made Trade
- Organic Basics
- Outerknown
- Tact and Stone
- Taylor Stitch
- TenTree
First up, the basics: I have replaced my Uniqlo boxers with these colorful specimens from Pact.
Never again will children in Bangladesh be harmed for my crotchal coverings... this much I swear.
Fantastically Oily and Salty Burnt Tilapia
This tilapia may look burnt and oily, and it is indeed very very salty (I don't think you can see salty... at least I can't) but it's the NUMBER ONE BEST fish thing I've ever made.
Me mum (who isn't British but I just say it like that) used to make tilapia like this: heavily seasoned and cooked to death in lots of oil.
I've made what I think are some refinements:
- Season your tilapias with salt, garam masala, tumeric, much kashmiri chili powder, and more salt
- Put a whole lot of mustard oil in a heated skillet. It should be pooling, though this isn't deep fried or anything. (I used one of my Misen stainless stick skillets and things don't stick to it if you heat the pan right.)
- Let the oil smoke a bit to get rid of that mustardy taste.
- Put the fish in and fry it. Fry it hard, harder than you've ever fried anything before. You're going for crispy edges and extremely dry insides. Flip as needed.
- At some point, squeeze some lemon juice over the fish. I also sprinkled some chaat masala because I've had it sitting in my cabinet for some time. In theory this is supposed to give it an added sour taste because of the dry mango powder... but I didn't experiment to see if there's anything to it.
- Once your fish is satisfactorily burnt, remove to a plate and throw some finaly cut onions into the skillet. Cook this pretty hard too. The onions should have sucked up most of the oil and given up all their sense of self and wellbeing.
Even though you're trying to lose weight so you look good for when you get to hopefully possibly maybe meet your dream girl in three weeks time (at least I think that's what's going to happen... but I've been fooled before), this oily, salty, burnt (or "blackened" is the proper term maybe) tilapia must be eaten over rice.
Assassin's... Fettuccini?
I was supposed to make my mom's yummy fried-to-death Indian tilpia today because I was supposed to eat that with some leftover daal which is a pretty healthy dinner free of rice and other bad things which is important because, as you know, I'm trying to get down to 162lbs by March 26th, the day that I have coined XXXXXXgeddon (that's not porn -- it's the name of some gal I'm totally into and I get to see her on the 26th so I need to look tip top Anoop).
But then I started watching this 50 minute Modern MBA episode on how Wendy's destroyed Burger King:
I had a tremendous craving for Whopper... but I'd just painted my nails (smoother than I'd ever managed to paint them before, I should mention), so I couldn't hop in my car immediately.
Thankfully by the end of the episode, I was so put off by some of the nasty "this is how it actually looks" Burger King pics that I decided to stay home, and that's when YouTube decided to remind me of a sexy spaghetti I'd seen before.
So that's what I ended up making: deliciously overcooked and fried spaghetti instead of my mom's deliciously overcooked and fried tilapia.
But two problems: 1) I didn't have spaghetti, and 2) my only nonstick pan is 10 inches -- not enough to fit the full whataver pasta I was going to use. For 1, I thought I'd use number one favorite tubular pasta buccatini, but didn't think that had any chance of getting tender when not completely fitting in the pan, so I used fettucini instead.
It put up a great fight and made quite a mess (my white shirt was covered in specks of red), but it did eventually give in and I was able to fry up the whole bunch in a 10 inch skillet.
And so... Assassin's Fettucini. Super duper spicy (so much chili flake -- I used a combo of regular old super spicy chili flake with less spicy but very red Korean gochuchang), super starchy and sticky (since whataver startch the pasta would have released into cooking water ended up in the final product here), packed full of flavor (in-place multi-layer tomato reduction), and quite the visual presentation (especially if one knew how to take better food pics than me). I topped mine with some parm and some crisped up guancale bits (which I'd fried up in the oil that I then used to fry -- or try to fry -- the uncooked dry fettuccini).
Now I'm wondering what happens if I try to make this with fresh pasta, which should fit snuggly in my pan.
Or maybe Assassin's Spaghetti-Os is a thing that I can invent.
Many possibilities for this deadly one-pot Spaghetti!
