Food and Beer
I haven't posted in a long time, but not much is new besides food and beer.
Brendan - thanks so much for the homebrewing kit for the wedding! We've made four batches of beer so far, and the first three were excellent.
We started with a batch of Irish Red, from a kit bought in Winooski. It was awesome, and encouraged us to make another batch as soon as we had the previous one bottled: Oatmeal Stout, IPA, and we have a heifeweissen fermenting now.
My friends loved the beer, and we've been giving them bottles to take home. Because they're chemists, I suggested they learn how to brew themselves. This week we did a group trip to the Raleigh brew store to pick up supplies and get them some starting literature. Then we returned to our apartment where we showed them how to brew:
Watching wort boil for an hour isn't particularly exciting, so we also had homebrew-drinking and a selection of awesome cheeses.
Raleigh is also home to the Grand Asia market, where you can literally buy everything. Live turtles? Lamb's penis? All fresh and ready to go.
I bought live tilapia, which they filet on the spot (and give you the bones and head for making stock with later). I have the "Sauces" recipe book from Border's (all their large, cheap hardcover cookbooks are awesome), and made a parsley sauce. First, I poached the tilapia in milk, butter and stock. Then I made a roux, added the poaching liquid, beaten egg yolk and cream, lemon zest and juice and parsley. The sauce was awesome, I just wished I had more fish to put it on.
The last thing I want to say is french toast cooking in cast iron is very pretty:
Brendan - thanks so much for the homebrewing kit for the wedding! We've made four batches of beer so far, and the first three were excellent.
We started with a batch of Irish Red, from a kit bought in Winooski. It was awesome, and encouraged us to make another batch as soon as we had the previous one bottled: Oatmeal Stout, IPA, and we have a heifeweissen fermenting now.
My friends loved the beer, and we've been giving them bottles to take home. Because they're chemists, I suggested they learn how to brew themselves. This week we did a group trip to the Raleigh brew store to pick up supplies and get them some starting literature. Then we returned to our apartment where we showed them how to brew:
Watching wort boil for an hour isn't particularly exciting, so we also had homebrew-drinking and a selection of awesome cheeses.
Raleigh is also home to the Grand Asia market, where you can literally buy everything. Live turtles? Lamb's penis? All fresh and ready to go.
I bought live tilapia, which they filet on the spot (and give you the bones and head for making stock with later). I have the "Sauces" recipe book from Border's (all their large, cheap hardcover cookbooks are awesome), and made a parsley sauce. First, I poached the tilapia in milk, butter and stock. Then I made a roux, added the poaching liquid, beaten egg yolk and cream, lemon zest and juice and parsley. The sauce was awesome, I just wished I had more fish to put it on.
The last thing I want to say is french toast cooking in cast iron is very pretty: