messhallhooligans

guest chefs: jocelyn vistro harrison and lourdes vistro.

my good eats. album on facebook has nearly exploded in the last two months since i’ve had time to actually indulge it. perhaps i should take notes from ferran adria and take a hiatus from the design services profession for six months out of the year to recalibrate in the kitchen. that would be the life, if i ever got to that point.

my cousin jocelyn reached out to me on facebook and suggested that we cook sometime. it’s amazing to me that you still learn new things regularly about people you’ve been related to for your entire life. age wise, i’m situated between jocelyn and lourdes. 

she asked me what i wanted to cook and being on this back to basics binge, i suggested we make kare kare from scratch. and she wasn’t messing around with the from scratch part, although i had no idea what i was getting myself into when i said it.

two fascinating ingredients we used are the achiote powder or ground annatto seeds and the banana flowers. the achiote basically gives the kare kare the color. the banana flowers impart a leek-y flavor. if you really want a challenge, mise en place for kare kare.

we even shelled and ground the peanuts for the sauce and toasted our own bagoong (shrimp paste). we used oxtail, which is my current meat cut obsession. however, we resorted to more conventional techniques for cooking it— dredging, browning, and slow cooking it in the soup rather than pressure cooking like my mother likes to do. 

a solid exercise in patience and technique for sure but the gratification of conquering such a complex dish is immeasurable.

- stella

back to basics.

i think it’s fairly ironic that i’ve been eating filipino food for 28 years and never bothered to try to make it myself other than the college efforts of adobo and sinigang from the packet. 

despite my dad’s heart episode a few years back, my parents refuse to give it up. it has also been an unspoken point of disagreement at family meals with my extended family, particularly my dad’s side, to fully relinquish filipino food as part of them. 

okay, guys … you win.

but, i’m making it slightly healthier and less focused on prepackaged ingredients.

small fry and i have been contemplating this idea of creating our own culinary curriculum for ourselves. aside from learning the basics, some of the electives i am proposing are:

beer brewing + pairing

foraging

molecular gastronomy

filipino cuisine

i started with the lumpiang sariwa (or fresh lumpia). don’t ask me to pronounce it or you will find that i’m a fraud in the realm of native filipino tongue. my parents used tagalog as a vehicle to discuss things they didn’t want my brother nor myself to understand. even made the sauce from scratch.

i made sisig for the first time over thanksgiving. and the blunder-turned-wonder was the pork leg my mother decided to equip me with to make it rather than the jowls and other less-than-desirable-in-american-culture parts typically in it. exceeded the health quotient for the dish by a long shot. we put it in the turbo to cook, added onions, jalapenos, sweet peppers, vinegar and lemon. pretty good for the first time. for all day grazing and beer consumption, pulutan (tagalog for snack food) is necessary.

i’ve been brewing over the idea of making sinigang from scratch for a long time and i finally figured it out.

I don’t really measure anything when I’m making my own recipes up, but here’s a ballpark:

2 lbs oxtail
6 cups water
1 tomato, chopped
1 onion, diced
1 sm piece of ginger, grated
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup flour
1 cup miso or rice water
3 lemons worth of juice
1/2 jar of young tamarind leaves and juice

enough of the long green beans as desired

one eggplant, diced

Directions: 
1. Dredge oxtail in flour and brown the meat.
2. Remove oxtail from pan and deglaze with onions and tomatoes. Keep all the brown bits. Makes the soup taste better.
3. Add garlic and ginger.
4. Saute until onions are translucent. 
5. Add water and whisk in miso. Bring soup to a boil.
6. Reduce heat to simmer and add tamarind leaves and lemon. 
7. Add salt or patis to taste.
8. Once your soup base is good, put oxtail back into soup.
9. Bring soup to boil and reduce heat to low. 
10. Let soup cook for about 2 hours.

i’ll save the kare kare recipe for another blog. that probably the most effort intensive dish i, in conjunction with my girl cousins, have ever produced together of course not without the aid of a little pinot grigio.

stay tuned.

- stella

my baby brother, the chef.

check this shit out. my brother has a cool career … well, theoretically it’s a future career but his nevertheless.

college majors should be chosen after 25. what do you really know about yourself and what you want to do for the rest of your life at 18?

if it were possible, culinary school would be mine.

mike’s final was one week of management at the restaurant at kellogg ranch. i was never a fan of the chef coat, but after seeing ferran adria’s in a documentary on el bulli, i NEED one.

i don’t think i gave mike enough credit for being experimental with his menu stacking abilities. two words: MY. BAD.

in any fine dining situation, and especially at the price point that this particular meal was at, one must order the most inventive things on the menu. so my prix fixe order included: the duck toasts— a white bean puree, duck rilette, and pate, the ribs, and the apple crisp. 

mike prepped me ahead of time to order a dessert with dr. bob’s ice cream.

here’s the pictoral round up:

the rilette was the item that really stuck out to me since it was so rich in flavor.

the bistro frisee was the other consideration for my appetizer. egg on anything is always a win. carolyn, mike’s girlfriend, got it so i was able to taste it. there was a lot going on in that salad— blue cheese, grapes, bacon, vinaigrette. sans blue cheese, it would have been perfect.

this entree debate always happens to me. it’s why i’m the perfect patron at tapas places because the servings are small for my serious flavor ADD or just go with someone who likes to share their food. i finally decided on the ribs. 

fingerling potatoes and a red cabbage slaw. so good. 

and the apple crisp.

what would the congregation of my family members in support be without some public embarrassment with love? they have a window into the kitchen so we all stood there in front of mike’s peers and gave our best performance of touristy waves. 

the fam got the VIP tour through the kitchen and the wine cellar. so sick. 

i would like to see this kid do big things. i think he’s got the personality for it. he just needs his shot.

- stella <—- proud sister.

local eats: les amis.

i’ve probably driven/walked/stumbled by les amis a few dozen times in gallivants through downtown fullerton. middle eastern food is not something i crave on the regular simply because the flavors tend to be … blah, where my flavor receptors with asian cuisine get blown out often with such potent taste.

that day, i spent the morning running around doing errands for mi madre and found it the perfect opportunity to get my microbusiness off the ground by registering it at the nearby county recorder’s office. and with low blood sugar as the driver, it was necessary to find somewhere within crawling distance to eat. 

thus, les amis. it means “friends” in french and was a crash course in french influence in lebanese cuisine. who knew.

upon walking in, it feels like a condensed version of the gypsy den. dark woods, rich paint colors, mismatched furniture, all sorts of interesting reading material scattered around different nooks. i posted up on one of the bar stools, opened up my moleskine, and allowed the experience to aerate.

this is a sign of good service in small establishments— a faithful offering of product. oddly enough, a sampler of everything i wanted to try on the menu on this miserable, drizzly day. featured is the hummus, the daily soup, and the culture special— spice marinated skirt steak and green beans. i LOVE green beans.

the final order …

the culture special with a petit noir. wine at lunch? sure. why not. no judgment. i had things to celebrate … the reality that i am now a small business owner.

still weird saying it. but in most gratuitous sentiments, thank you les amis for having a rich patron experience.

- stella

les amis

128 West Wilshire Avenue  

Fullerton, CA 92832

(714) 526-2100

local eats: rooster pm

“sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged lightly.” - m.k. fisher

that brilliant quote came from the bottom of the menu at rooster pm. small fry and i ended up here last week after having toured the hood kitchen space, possible facility for launching our professional culinary project. i will add that i am hopelessly in love with the facility so i’m on my own ass to get my foodhandler’s cert as soon as possible.

rooster pm has been on both our radars for quite sometime. think american style tapas— small plates and craft beers in a diner type atmosphere. very resonant of the ambiance that small fry and i were considering for our newest project.

oskar blues mama yella pils. that was the beverage for the evening.

as for the dish choices, we went based on recommendation from the wait staff.

the dish rundown:

blackened avocado chicken cup.

definitely not the ingredients that stick out to me on the menu. but this was damn well flavor-packed for being mediocre choices. real talk. the peppers in the dish really made it feel like you just got jabbed in the mouth.

the mac with a retarded amount of different cheese.

we’re mac fans. what can i say.

fried shishito peppers.

the only bad thing about this dish is that the peppers aren’t consistently hot. it’s like navigating through landmines for a heat wimp like me. i lost that battle a few times getting through the dish.

simple food. no frills ambiance. good food doesn’t have to be fancy and this place is case and point.

- stella

rooster pm

750 st clair st
costa mesa, ca 92626

(714) 697-0200