Spicy Coconut Shrimp Bisque – It's the Besh!

This spicy coconut shrimp bisque recipe was inspired by a similar soup I saw Chef John Besh make during a demo I attended at the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival. As I watched him make it, I couldn't wait to get back to San Francisco to give it a try.

How close is this to his version? I have no idea, as I was drunk on tequila. Besides the coconut milk, I can barely remember what he put in it. After doing a pre-show shot with his assistants, Besh jokingly instructed the floor staff to pour the audience a shot. Minutes later, much to his delight, shots of tequila were distributed throughout the room.

Just that would have made for an amusing anecdote, but it didn't stop there. By the time the demo ended 45 minutes later, we had enjoyed five rounds of drinks, with Besh and his sous chef more than keeping pace. Remarkably, when the show ended, the well-oiled chef had managed to produce a seriously delicious looking bisque with dumplings. What a show off.

Anyway, I know it's been a while since I posted a real video recipe, but I really think this one will have been worth the wait. I loved how this turned out, and I think you will as well. I hope you give it a try, and maybe tweak it with some different combinations of seafood and garnishes. Cheers! Err, I mean, enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 pound shrimp, shells reserved

2 1/2 cups water

4 tablespoons butter, divided

1/3 cup chopped green onions

1/3 cup diced celery

1/4 cup diced jalapeno

1/4 cup flour

2 cups prepared tomato soup

1/2 cup coconut milk

1/4 teaspoon red curry paste, or to taste

salt and/or fish sauce to taste

basil chiffonade

rice crackers

View the complete recipe

Giveaway: New Dessert Icings

It's been awhile since I've done a giveaway, but lucky for you the fine people at Signature Brands just came out with 4 new Dessert Icings in the following flavors...

OREO: Original Crème, Chocolate Crème
S’mores: Traditional, Chocolate Cinnamon

...and they are offering all 4 of them to one of my readers! Each icing comes with a variety of decorative tips. Look, I like to make homemade frosting like the next wanna-be-Ina-Garten, but sometimes you just need to reach into your pantry for a quick fix. Also, I really want to bring that S'mores tube to a campfire and smear it between two graham crackers and a marshmallow, don't you? All you have to do is comment to win all 4!

The Giveaway Rules:

1. You must be an official follower of this blog to win (please click the "follow" icon in the right margin).
2. Only open to residents of the U.S. and Canada.
3. Winner will be chosen at random on Monday, July 4th at 10am PT.

Good luck!

The Premises

I had a conversation with an interesting person recently about the change in the way coffee in Melbourne tastes.  No, I'm not talking about instant versus espresso but rather the coffee flavour and the milk consistency have undergone some sort of slow mutation.  I remember when I first started drinking coffee, a latte was $2 and would often come with a serviette origami-d around it, I guess to protect your hand because it was so hot.  Now in trendy cafes, the coffee is barely lukewarm and the milk has a silky consistency so there is almost no distinction between the froth and the coffee at the bottom of the glass - kind of like a coffee milkshake, as this person correctly opined.

The actual taste of the beans varies from the classic "espresso" taste of Genovese or other big name brands to very unusual flavours from the micro-roasters.  The Premises in Kensington is very much this newer style of coffee.

I love the space - two shops have evidently been joined so that The Premises has two street frontages, hugging the florist on the corner.  The aesthetic is gorgeous with old wood, school-type chairs, lots of open space and light.  The staff are all lovely - no 'tude here.

Delicious, perfectly made coffee using Seven Seeds.  The beans have a strange, almost smoky flavour though.  It's almost like you can taste the oils on the beans.  It's not unpleasant but gives the coffee another dimension.

And what of latte art?  We used to love Flavours of Lakhoum in Richmond where the barista would draw women's faces in the froth, sometimes apparently trying to resemble the drinker.  It seems a bit naff now but it was so sweet at the time.

A good ole bacon and egg roll, this one with homemade BBQ sauce.  It was enormous, football-shaped and half was plenty for an adult.

Free range egg with "Newmarket bacon" (not sure what butcher or supplier this is?) - the bacon was sensational, really smoky and meaty.  I do wish the roll was toasted, though, as there was a lot of bread and some textural variation would have been nice.

I wish I could give you a spiel about how "I always choose the bacon and egg roll/caesar salad/spring rolls to give me a benchmark of how good a place is", but I can't.  Sometimes you just want what you want.

More great local coffee at the original "best cafe" in Kensington, Fruits of Passion.  Their food is a bit stuck in the 00's but the coffee (Vittoria) is unreal.

The Premises

202 Bellair Street, Kensington (map)

Phone:  9376 7565

Closed Mondays

So hot!

Another heatwave, and as usual, I'm melting. I do what I can to keep cool, and I whipped up this super-quick icecream/milkshake/smoothie a few days ago.

Frozen strawberries and raspberries, milk and some vanilla ice cream, whizzed together in the blender. Let's call it Instant Brain-Freeze. Sometimes even that's preferrable to the heat.

Almanac Beer – Won't Help You Forecast the Weather, But Will Help You Not Care

I'd like to congratulate my friend, and resident Food Wishes beer consultant, Jesse Friedman, who has recently taken the plunge into the wild and wacky world of self-employment. You may know Jesse as the publisher of Beer & Nosh, but very soon, you'll also know him as the wildly successful co-creator of Almanac Beer. By the way, if you're going to quit your day job, and say goodbye to all the safety and security it affords, then having lots of craft beer around is probably not a bad idea.

After years of hard work and experimentation, Jesse and his partner Damian will be officially releasing their "farm to barrel" brew on Thursday, June 30. I had the pleasure of tasting some this spring, and was quite impressed. I've just returned from LA after three grueling weeks, and way too tired to come up with the appropriate adjectives to describe the beer, so instead I'll simply invite you to watch the video below, and then give the Almanac Beer blog a visit for more information.

FYI: I'm back in the kitchen tomorrow and should have a long overdue video recipe up by the end of the day. Stay tuned!

Spicy Mexican Glazed Nuts

Oooh...these unassuming little nuggets are...whew!...spicy 
and oh so addicting.

if you want a quick spicy sweet nut recipe, this is a great one.  they turn out really crunchy, slightly glazed and you don't have to do anything on the stove with molten sugar or syrups...a simple egg white along with your spices and a little sugar... in the oven, and the magic spicy glazed coating happens without fail.  these were such a hit with my spice lovin' friends.  i tend to make things a bit spicier than most can handle, and these were just right.  i must say...i used REAL MEXICAN CHILI POWDER.  not the wimpy stuff you buy at a regular market so mine came out extra spicy...AND i used the cayenne.  i suggest you use your judgement on the spices, but if you have a Mexican market near you do yourself a favor and buy the real stuff.  it's cheap and always adds a nice blend of spicy chilies to what ever you're making.

SPICY MEXICAN GLAZED NUTS

adapted from Big World-Small Kitchen and Epicurious

3 cups raw mixed nuts

(i used almonds, pecans, macadamia and walnut)

1/3 cup sugar

1 egg white beaten until white and fluffy

1 Tbsp chili powder

(i used REAL Mexican chili powder...whew!...spicy!)

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 - 3/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

preheat oven to 350 F...place rack in the middle

spray baking sheet with non stick spray.  in a small bowl combine sugar and spices.  in a large bowl whisk egg until white and frothy.  add nuts into egg white then add the sugar/spice mixture and stir until everything looks evenly coated

spread nuts evenly onto prepared baking sheet and bake until golden, about 20 minutes.

TIP... i took them out after 15-20 minutes and stirred and separated the nuts...then returned to the oven for approx. 10-15 more minutes.  keep your eye on them.  i think this second baking time helps to keep them crunchy.

TIP... do not store them until they are completely cooled, but do not wait over night to store them.  if they get a little sticky (they shouldn't because of the second bake) you can stick them back in the oven for a few minutes, let them cool, then store again.

TIP... store in a clip top glass jar with a rubber seal

TIP... also i saved some of those little stay-fresh packets you find at the bottom of other snack foods....you know that annoying little plastic pouch that says DO NOT EAT...DO NOT OPEN.  they look like sugar packets...i put one of those in the bottom of the jar if i have one available.  don't know if it does anything, but i made some nuts 2 weeks ago that are still good and crunchy.

trust me these won't last that long...you'll eat them all up, but i made a sweet glazed version for Dad and he doesn't eat them as quickly as i do

Chile Pepper Menu at Dosa

A few weeks ago I had brunch at Dosa on Fillmore. It was absolutely fantastic. First of all, it's a lovely and glamorous dining room with high ceilings, gold accents and modern sculptural chandeliers. And the food is so good. I love having something a little out of the ordinary for brunch. There are omelets with chiles, dosas with eggs, spiced up scrambled eggs, all the things you want but served in a new way. So I was particularly thrilled to get a chance to work with chef and owner Anjan Mitra to put together a really cool menu for BlackboardEats. And now I have an excuse to go back for dinner.

Anjan uses the best ingredients and brings a level of freshness to Indian food that is pretty much unique in San Francisco. He's been wanting to do a chile pepper menu for some time and the dishes are all over the map in terms of heat. Because this is a BlackboardEats special, YOU MUST sign up at http://blackboardeats.com/ and download a passcode on June 28th (or first thing June 29th) to be able to order these dishes. But the good thing is you can order as many or as few as you want.



Photo credit: Robin Jolin
I teased Anjan that this corn salad is a bit like succotash. But really it's a bright lime and spiced smoky salad that has a little bowl of chiles on the side so you can take the heat up to wherever you like.



Photo credit: Robin Jolin
The lamb pepper fry is a rich curry with many layers of chile and sweet undertones of cardamom and cinnamon.



Photo credit: Robin Jolin
The peppers stuffed with chicken looks like chile rellenos! I guess in a way it is, and the sauce resembles mole because it is made from more chiles and ground nuts and sesame.



Photo credit: Robin Jolin
The batter fried chiles are like Indian jalapeno poppers! The batter is light and made from lentils and instead of cheese the filling is a creamy puree of sesame and peanuts. Anjan uses different peppers so you don't know if you'll get a mild bite or a zinger but there is cooling tamarind and yogurt chutneys to take the heat down if you desire.



Photo credit: Robin Jolin
I am always torn between ordering dosas which are like crepes or uttapams which are like moist pancakes. For this special menu there is a Habanero uttapam. This untraditional uttapam has a mango habanero chutney mixed into the batter, along with seasonal vegetables making it bright and colorful and it comes with that outrageous dal that is at once exciting and comforting.

The dishes are priced extremely well considering the quality, from $9 to $12 each and of course there are lots of other wonderful things on the menu to round out your meal. Many thanks to Anjan for creating this great menu and to Robin Jolin for taking the drop dead gorgeous photos.

Adam Perry Lang

I'm still trying to figure out if last Friday night actually happened. Did it? Was June 24th, 2011 a date that occurred in history? Let me explain...

It was Carson's birthday dinner. I was cooking for a lot of people, and stressing just a tad (melting, meltdowns) about it. So I asked one of his friends for some advice on the main entree, the steak. But what I wasn't expecting was for him to say, "You know, I actually have a friend in town who happens to be a Meat Maestro/Established Chef/Barbecue and Grilling Expert - can I bring him? He'll cook the steak." (Those weren't his exact words but that's what I heard in my cartwheel-twirling brain.)

His name is Adam Perry Lang, and not only does he grill like THEEE BEST of them, he is a lovely person and now a friend. Let me learn you some things that I learned from this genius chef...

First off, the above photo, that's Adam personally butchering the massive Rib Eye we were to eat that night at Lindy & Grundy's Butcher Shop in Los Angeles. Go to there.

Now, here's Adam at our house. He asked for a pepper grinder, and I was very excited to hand him the only one I own... Mr. Bigfoot MaGoo...


Now this. This has changed my life. Everything I thought I knew about herbs and basting and uses for wooden spoons has been thrown out the window. He asked me for a pot, he asked me for a spoon - seemed normal enough. But then, he took a massive bunch of herbs and tied it to the end of the spoon with kitchen twine, turning it into a basting brush. BUT I LIKE TO CALL IT A MAGICAL BROOM OF JOY. In the pot went the fat trimmings from the steak, butter and clove upon clove of garlic. He warmed the pot on the grill, and used the MAGICAL BROOM OF JOY to sop up the goodness in the pot which he smeared all over the steaks as they cooked...


If you think I stuck this herb brush up my nose all night long and the next morning, you are correct.

Ok, grilled meat, resting peacefully on some olive oil...


Next came his carving techniques. He took more herbs, chopped them up, placed them on the cutting board and the steak on top of that...


...and he carved the beautiful, beautiful meat. Don't you love this story?


Carson's dad, Pops, secretly taking notes...


I have never tasted such flavor in a steak. The herbs, the garlic, the butter, the marbling, the perfect crust, the smoke, the expert medium-rare...

Here's a gratuitous Siri Chewing Picture:


A PERFECT evening... old friends, new friends, great food, lots of drink and older kids to watch Jack. It was such an honor to meet Adam and to have my kitchen blessed by his presence! If you're ever in these areas, check out his restaurants...

London... Barbecoa (with Jamie Oliver)
New York... Daisy May's BBQ USA
Las Vegas... CarneVino (with Mario Batali)

A cookbook giveaway

I love new cookbooks, and I'm especially excited when fellow food bloggers publish books! The latest one in this genre is Gott att ge bort ("Good to give away") by the sweet Linnéa Seidel who blogs at Linneás Skafferi. She's young, but this is actually not her first book - she's done a whole series of books that were sold with one of Swedish newspapers, a few years ago. The photos for those books, as well as this one, are taken by Katja Kristoferson who happens to be a friend of my sister's. It's a small world!

This book is all about edible gifts - small things you can make to bring with you in lieu of flowers, or chocolate. It's much more fun - and much more personal. The book has a wide range of recipes - cookies, flavored sugars, jams and pesto, and even homemade cookie mixes in a jar. There are plenty of packaging ideas as well!

Linnéa and her boyfriend Sebbe just became parents (yeeeeay, congratulations!), and to celebrate that, and to celebrate the book, I'm giving away five copies. To win, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post, telling me what your favorite edible gift is. Make sure you leave your e-mail address, so I can contact you if you win. The book is in Swedish, but I don't mind shipping internationally if you live elsewhere.

A big thanks to Bonnier Fakta publishing, for providing the books. Giveaway closes on Friday, July 1.

Italian Indulgence in Basilico in Regent Hotel

We have looked at the delicious food photos, heard nice things about their food and I decided to organise one dinner gathering at Basilico to get an affirmation with our palates. Basilico is an Italian restaurant located on the 2nd floor of Regent Hotel. As we stepped out of the lift and walk towards the entrance to Basilico, the perspective of my vision opened up into a wide open space under a coat of warm cosy lighting. For a while, I thought it was impressive.

The dining area is spread out along the circumference of the circular layout centered around the antipasti buffet spread out underneath the impressive chandelier.

Basilico serves both buffet and a-la-carte authentic Italian fare. We came here for their "Basilissimo", The Best of Basilico, 3 course set dinner. The set consist of unlimited servings of the antipasti buffet spread, a choice of 13 signature mains and an unlimited servings of desserts. 

Everyone was served a piece of the wood fired magherita pizza to start our dinner, before we flock around the antipasti section.

Here's some of the antipasti available with unlimited servings ........

Ricotta

Smoked Mozzarella

Say Cheese .....

The cured cuts and the olives ......

I'm certainly getting my slices of the San Daniele Prosciuttos

Parma ham ..... Prosciuttos e melone is a must.

Here's the open kitchen where our mains were cooked.

Le Bombette al Tartufo Nero Noci, Pancetta e Rucoletta Selvatica - Angelo's Bombette of Grass Fed Beef Sirloin,  Stuffed with Black Truffle, Pork Pancetta, Walnuts and Wild Rockets. This was HY's choice of mains from the list in the set menu. The slightly charred exterior over the tender sirloin gave it bonus points. Together with the juice that secretes out with the mouthful was the scent of black truffles. The crunchiness of the walnut provides an added texture to the taste. Although, there's a number of ingredients  that were accompaniment to the sirloin, they didn't clout the taste of the beef but they all coexist in merriment..

Risotto alla Zafferano con Fegato Grasso in Padella e Riduzione di Barbera - Saffron Risotto with Pan Roasted Foie Gras, Barbera Wine reduction. If you like rich hearty food, this has to be the one. The deep yellow risotto had an intensely rich parmesan flavor that may be overpowering to one that didn't like cheese. To top off the richness was a generous piece of foie gras, pan roasted, lightly salted and within the seared faces were tenderness that melts in the mouth. If I haven't been overloaded with the antipasti buffet spread, I would have appreciated this dish even more. Chris thought this was over dose of richness but Jane actually thought it was good. The risotto certainly evoked different responses from its intense richness.

The Logan Almond Cake from Rive Gauche. It's not available in Basilico. We brought it to celebrate HY's birthday. Happy Birthday Darling!

This pistachio gelato was the only dessert that I have eaten from the dessert section after having HY's birthday cake. Pistachio ice cream here was really good and I thought as good as the ones I had in Italy. It's a pity that I didn't eat more of the rest of the desserts. They delectable choices that I didn't capture, really seemed alluring. Next time, I shall not have too much of the antipasti to leave space for dessert.

At the price we paid, I think it was worth all the authentic Italian goodies that we have eaten. The numerous slices of prosciuttos especially the San Daniele and the marvelous mains made this an enjoyable dinner. At S$65++ for the set dinner, anyone with a good appetite and an inclination for authentic Italian food would find the "Basilissimo" all worth while.

1 Cuscaden Road

Regent Hotel Level 2

Singapore

Tel: +65 6725 3232

Basilico Website

This is happening...

At the moment, I am currently bagging up every, single item of food in my kitchen, pantry, fridge and freezer. Why? Because we have termites, and our house is being fumigated. I just started, finished one bag and took a break. Only eleventy-thousandy-five more to go. Oh, and don't forget the medicines, spices and alcohol. Want to come over and help? I'll bake you something? Except for I won't because I have to bag the shit out of my baking supplies.

Banana Caramel Cake

Carson isn't very specific about food, and usually leaves what we're going to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner up to me. But his birthday cake this year was a different story. I think I want a banana caramel cake. Got it, easy enough. I found a recipe and showed him. Well, I don't really want chunks of banana, I was thinking more like banana pudding. Ok, that sounds good. And how about I mush bananas in the cake batter to really bring out the flavor? No, that's too much banana. I'd like a white cake. Ok, and I'll drizzle caramel on the top. Buttttttt, maybe you should also drizzle it inside. And it should be salted. With a whipped frosting. Right.

I'm okay with a man who knows what he likes in a cake.

So, I made a white cake from a box, and some banana pudding from a box (look, I was cooking food for a dozen people and had to compromise somewhere), with this Salted Butter Caramel Sauce and this Seven Minute Frosting. Here's how I put it all together...

melting sugar...


salted butter and heavy cream...


caramel sauce...


assembling with pudding and cooled caramel sauce...


two layers...


the prettiest frosting you'll ever make that tastes like marshmallows...


Carson approved. In fact, all dozen guests approved too : )