Joe Tsao

Ingredients that can bring anything to perfection:
1. Old Bay
2. Red pepper flakes
3. Lemon zest
4. Almond extract
5. Almond extract
6. Almond extract

I may be biased here, growing up eating “almond tofu” and drinking “almond drink,” but the Italians sure know their stuff when they bake. Only thing missing is Disaronno.

Ta da! Biscotti made with butter “should be eaten within a day.” That wasn’t much of a problem.
Recipe from New Best Recipe book.

Tastiness: 4/5
Difficulty: A sprinkle above cookies.

Olive the other extra virgin oil is great for cooking
Olive the other reindeer, however, is a dog.

Again cooking from New Best Recipe:

Start with these ingredients

Toast 1/4 cup almonds, toast 3 cloves garlic
Combine lots of basil, some parsley, and bruise or mortar to release aroma
Add to  7/16 cup olive oil, almonds, 1/2 tsp salt, and garlic in food processor
Mix in a bunch of Parmesan cheese (1/4 cup)

Combine with a pound of pasta and get

Simple, fast, delicious
Looking forward to using this sauce for pizza somehow!

Taste: 4/5
Difficulty: Really easy

As Chicken-licken was going one day to the wood, whack! An acorn fell from a tree onto his head. But it wasn’t the acorn, it was the sky!

From New Best Recipe – the Simplest Roast Chicken. Recipe is chicken, butter, salt, pepper.

Lessons learned
1. Butter is what browns the skin, and helps it be more delicious
2. More pepper! Add lemon!
3. Brine regular chicken, but not Kosher ones, which are already brined.
4. Roast at 375 for 15 min on each side to evenly cook the meat, then breast up and 450 to crispen! Breast should be at 160. Thighs 165-170.
5. Take out fire alarm before cooking at 450, or something in the oven will burn.

Need to learn: how to smoke the chicken to give the meat more flavor.

Turned out to be quite juicy, even the breast.

What happened to the leg was that I got over-excited and ate it before I took a picture.

Taste: 3/5 (Juicy, but a little bland)
Difficult: relatively easy. Butter-salt-pepper-bake!

Intersession provides me with time to pursue a few interests, and one of my interests is food. Exploring new foods to eat, and cooking food.
Recently, I bought a cook book – The New Best Recipe, a product of Cook’s Illustrated. So far, it is an amazing book, for it gives not just recipes, but the science and the trial-and-error behind each recipe as well. Hopefully my recommendation for the book counteracts the words of wisdom I’m stealing from it and feeding to you. Anyways, my first project from this book – Pasta with Garlic and Oil (or Aglio e Olio).

Pasta with Garlic and Oil

Here are the ingredients (well the butter shouldn’t be in here). This recipe is really quite simple, but I’ve learned a lot from following the book instructions (apparently I’ve been cooking pasta all wrong over the years).
Some lessons learned:
1. Salt is actually for taste, not raising the boiling point (you’d have to pour a ton of salt in there to raise the bp by just a few degrees).
2. Rinsing the pasta after dumping it in the colander? Bad idea. This removes starch from the pasta which sticks to the sauce.
3. Always stir the sauce into the pasta, rather than just putting it on top. This helps the pasta not stick to itself.

Nice and simple. The ton of garlic put into it isn’t overpowering at all! In fact, it is absolutely delicious. Helps to have a pasta cooked perfectly al dente.

Add a little Parmesan cheese, and it is perfected.

My ratings
Taste: 4/5.  Nothing special, but still tasty.
Difficulty: Relatively easy. Would be much easier if I had a garlic press.