a busy february.

Jacob Aronoff

I travelled a ton in Feb, but that didn't mean I avoided cooking some great meals while I had time at home! This month I got a chance to ski out west in Utah, incredibly difficult and massively rewarding.

Panang for Dinner Party

Using the unholy amount of panang I made in December, we had a dinner party using two portions of the paste. I did it with half fried and half simmered firm tofu, thai eggplant, and broiled shallots. It never fails to be incredibly delicious, and I was proud of how it came out this time – just the right texture.

Cabbage Rolls (the overfilling part 1)

So this was a bit of a mistake. I saw a recipe for cabbage rolls on instagram from an israeli chef, and it seemed like there wasn't enough filling in his recipe so I 2.5xed it. The cabbage rolls didn't need much filling at all, which meant I was left with about 4 cups of extras.

For the filling, it was comprised of walnuts, celery, carrots, mushrooms, tomatoes, onion, parsley, mint, tomato paste and chilis. I then boiled (for not long enough) some cabbage to separate the leaves. After letting the leaves sit, we filled them and rolled them up, placing them in a cast iron to cook in the oven with a simple stock, gochujang, and tomato paste combo.

Pot Pies (the overfilling part 2)

I had a few ideas of what to do with the leftover filling, usually I just dumpling-ify or throw it in a hand pie, but I did a quick switch up and decided to make a whole wheat pastry crust. The crust was a bit too soft, I was eager to get it going but eventually I rolled it and filled it. I have a few sizes of ramekins, 3 mediums and maybe a dozen small ones so I used the medium ones and a few small ones. I baked them off, and enjoyed them with some kewpie mayo and hot sauce because the filling itself was a bit too dry. I discovered a few days later, the baked pies lifted right out of the ramekins, so I reheated them by inverting them and putting them on parchment.

Curry rice (the overfilling part 3)

Using the kewpie mayo yesterday gave me the idea to turn the filling into curry rice! I had been craving curry rice for a while so this felt like a great use. I whipped together a simple roux, added some curry powder and gochugaru for some extra oomph. I thickened it plenty and poured it into a broth with the rest of the filling. This thickened beautifully into a consistency like a simple syrup – thin, but with some body. I served it with some koshikari rice and it was lovely. Maybe next time I'll make the curry rice and put that in a hand pie!

Valentine's Dinner

I know all of my posts thus far have been about what I cooked, but this dinner was so incredible that it's worth mentioning. We went to Tsubame for Valentine's and it was unbelievably good. I also got to try shirako!! SHIRAKO!! I was freaking out. Funny enough they started playing a lo-fi version of the cantina music from star wars... if you know you know. I also had some of the best uni in my life. It literally tasted like ocean breeze combined with a triple cream.

A Quick Warm Tofu

We had an exhausting day, went to the gym, and had no clue what to do for dinner. I got home and immediately boiled some somen, soaked the gram flour, and prepped the toppings. I put the warm tofu over the somen, added my menagerie of toppings. Came together in under 30 mins and was great as ever! Oh! I also fried an egg :D

Spring Rolls

We went to a laotian restaurant and had these amazing build-your-own spring rolls with cilantro, mushroom and lettuce. We recreated them with mushrooms again, cauliflower, cucumer, broccoli rabe, black rice and prik nam pla. These were wonderfully light and very filling. We also dipped them in a mole I made a few months ago. I liked the prik nam pla more, the acid and fish sauce combo was perfect for me.