Lunch Date/Fresh Pasta

Yesterday was unusual for a Monday in that my truck was in the shop and Ann kindly ferried me about. Though it was a pain in her ass, it did afford us the opportunity to have lunch together, something that rarely happens. After bringing the weekly haul from Costco back to the restaurant, we decided to have lunch at Thai Winchester while waiting for my truck to get done.

Happy to be on a Date

Lager and Spicy Food, Hard to Beat

Summer Rolls

Cellophane Noodle Salad

Krapow Gai Sub

We really enjoyed sitting outside yesterday: despite the blazing sun, the temperature was moderate for this time of year especially in the shade of an umbrella and the breeze was wonderful. It was 3:00 by the time lunch was done and my truck was not ready, so we headed home. We put on Game of Thrones from Sunday night and had just about finished watching it when I got the call that my truck was ready.

We planned to take a walk after getting my truck, but by the time we got back to the house, it was still too hot, so we decided to push the walk out to about 6:00 to take advantage of the sun's being lower on the horizon. It still wasn't very cool and there were parts of our 4-mile walk that really dragged as we were in full sun. Nonetheless, we made it and back home, headed for cool showers before starting to make dinner.

I had made some fresh pasta at the restaurant on Saturday for my tasting menu and was teasing Ann by sending her pictures. She told me in so many words that if I knew what was good for me, I would bring some home. And so I brought a ball of dough and the pasta machine home. Annie got a lesson in rolling and cutting fresh pasta. I figured that being a card-carrying Italian that she would have been well versed in pasta, but apparently not. No excuses now!

Rolling Pasta, Batches of Noodles Tossed in Semolina

Cutting Noodles

I'm not the world's biggest fan of fresh pasta, being a box pasta kind of guy, but this fresh pasta that I made with local duck eggs was outstanding! That I haven't had pasta in months didn't hurt, I'm sure.

Freshly Cut Tagliatelle for Dinner!

Bonus Dinner: Cellophane Noodle Salad

Tuesday was about as odd a day in the restaurant business as one could imagine. School just started so we had no reservations and not much hope of any dinner business either. Worse still, our disgruntled dishwasher called out sick after posting on Facebook on the weekend that he hates his job and never wants to wash dishes again, so we were stuck with no dishwasher.

However, one of our line cooks volunteered to come in and wash dishes for the extra hours on his paycheck. And with the extra line cook in the kitchen, there was really no need for me to be there, so I took the night off and stopped by the grocery store to pick up some items to make that cellophane noodle salad that Ann and I had discussed as a possibility for Sunday's dinner.

Cellophane Noodle Salad with Shrimp

This light, refreshing salad was just what the doctor ordered. Ann and I ate it while catching up on some TV.

Salad Ingredients Save for Shrimp and Noodles

This is a freeform salad that takes little time to prep, cook, and devour and should be in everyone's culinary arsenal. Five minutes of prep included cutting up two bunches of cellophane noodles with kitchen scissors and covering them in warm water, defrosting eight big shrimp, slicing a quarter of a small red onion, cutting half a bunch of green onions into batons, likewise for a small pickling cucumber and a small orange pepper, picking some cilantro leaves, harvesting some Thai basil leaves from the garden, and making a batch of nước chấm from lime juice, fish sauce, garlic, sambal oelek, and agave nectar.

When we were ready to eat, I quickly cooked the shrimp, drained the noodles, and mixed everything together. A quick scattering of crispy fried shallots on top finished the dish.

Ann said to me during dinner, "It's almost like we're normal." Almost, girlfriend, almost.

Easy. Fresh. Delicious. Quick. Try it.

Shrimp Summer Rolls

Summer roll, nem roll, salad roll, gỏi cuốn, by whatever name, these Vietnamese rolls are delicious and make for an easy dinner. And they are what Ann wanted for dinner last night.

Shrimp Summer Roll

The hardest part of prepping dinner was cutting the cellophane noodles with scissors, submerging them in water, and then putting them in the microwave for a couple of minutes. That, and squeezing the limes for the nước chấm, which is by way of saying that there was almost no prep for dinner. Even the shrimp are precooked and frozen and only need to be refreshed in cold water for a couple of minutes before they are ready for the table.

Nước Chấm, Shrimp, Cilantro, Green Onion, Thai Basil, Cellophane Noodles, Rice Papers

I know that a lot of restaurants serve peanut sauce with their summer rolls, but I find that the heavy peanut butter-based sauce overpowers the delicate rolls. Instead, I like to put chopped peanuts in my nước chấm. Best of both worlds.

It was fun standing around the counter assembling these rolls and dipping and double-dipping them in the nước chấm. It got us to talking about why so many Americans who think nothing of grabbing a slice of pizza with their hands have such a hard time eating other foods with their hands.

Pad Woon Sen: Thai Mash Up

Pad Woon Sen

Ann left dinner up to me yesterday. I knew immediately that we needed to do a krapow dish because the Thai basil in the garden is coming in fast and furious now. So I texted her: shrimp and Thai basil or squid and Thai basil. Squid was her choice (and I knew it would be, but I wanted to ask). That girl loves squid; so do I. And that settled it: Squid Krapow for dinner.

Because I am trying to watch my carbs, I decided to forgo the rice with the squid. To complement the spicy squid, I wanted to do Som Tum, green papaya slaw. And so at the market, I grabbed everything I would need that I don't have at home: squid, green papaya, bird chiles, and green beans. I bought green beans because they are fresh and seasonal. I could have bought the traditional long beans, but they looked like hell. Always choose quality over authenticity.

In the afternoon, I prepped both dishes but assembled neither and then went to watch a movie with Ann. After the movie, she insisted that she wanted Pad Thai. I don't keep rice noodles at home because I can buy them fresh at the market when I need them. And I wasn't in the mood for Pad Thai, having just prepped Som Tum and Squid Krapow. But I find it very hard to not please her, so I found a couple bundles of woon sen, cellophane noodles, in the pantry.

From there, I made Pad Woon Sen with the traditional Krapow sauce of oyster sauce, soy sauce, and lots of fish sauce and tossed in all the ingredients for Som Tum: grated papaya, peanuts, green beans, tomatoes, lime juice, and brown sugar. I made this dish grudgingly and probably with a few grumbles, but do you know what? It turned out to be a fantastic dish!

What to Drink with Thai Food? Yep, a Big Bordeaux Blend

I think my restaurant customers might freak out if they saw what I drank with my spicy Thai food, a big Bordeaux blend from nearby Delaplane Cellars. People put way too much emphasis on what goes with what. I always tell people to drink what they like and don't worry about it. At least I practice what I preach.

Cellophane Noodle Salad with Grilled Red Drum

After a really unpleasantly hot and humid weekend full of nasty thunderstorms, Monday started out to be a carbon copy, but turned out to be a pretty decent day and cool enough to sit outside. Finally! And I was able to move a late afternoon meeting up by an hour so that I could get home to enjoy the nice weather that developed during the day.

Note to self: I am under strict orders from my wife to give her credit for the following dinner.

During the morning and early afternoon, it was pretty humid and it looked like the day was going to be a rehash of the weekend: soupy air and threat of thunderstorms. And the morning is when we discuss what we want for dinner. Given the weather, we were looking for something light and Ann had Asian on the brain and specifically mentioned cellophane noodles (the credit, folks, is all hers). I wanted grilled fish, so I put the two together.

After we picked the kids up from school at 5:00, I started prepping dinner, making a quick cellophane noodle salad (yum woon sen), the dressing for the salad, and prepping a side of red drum.



Standard Thai Salad Dressing

Dressings in Thailand are very simple and although I make mine from slightly different ingredients than they would in Thailand, the end result is almost identical. The dressing above is a mix of lime juice, sambal oelek, fish sauce, minced garlic, and agave nectar. I use sambal so that I don't have to crush the chiles in a mortar and I use agave nectar so that it goes directly into solution without a lot of stirring. A basic recipe idea is:

    juice of 3 limes
    3 tablespoons agave nectar (to taste)*
    3 tablespoons fish sauce
    2 tablespoons sambal oelek*
    2 cloves garlic, minced

Mix well. Adjust seasonings to your taste. Makes enough for a large salad.

*or your favorite sweetener/your favorite heat

Cellophane Noodle Salad without Fish and Dressing

Cellophane noodles, aka glass noodles, bean thread, woon sen, among other names, is a noodle made from various kinds of starch, most typically mung bean. They have a slippery-crunchy quality that makes them perfect for cold salads (although they are often stir-fried, see pad woon sen). They come in small bundles, each of which is typically enough for a single serving. Cover the bundles with boiling water and let stand for 5-10 minutes, then drain the noodles, and spread them out to cool off. When cool, chop into manageable lengths with a knife (or some people use scissors).

Mix with your favorite crunchy raw vegetables and herbs and toss with dressing. Add a protein if you like. My salad above has noodles, orange peppers, red peppers, carrots, cilantro leaves, and Thai basil leaves, green onions, lots of each. I love sliced red onion in this salad too, but didn't have any. No worries, it's just a salad!

After prepping all this, we went outside and enjoyed a glass of wine while the noodles were chilling and the grill was heating. I congratulated my wife on her brilliant choice of dinner.

Asprinio d'Aversa, our new Favorite Summertime Sipper

The wine that we opened is our new favorite summer sipper, a sparkling Asprinio from the town of Aversa, near Naples in Campania. We just love this lightly creamy wine: it feels more like beer in the mouth than sparking wine and it is a touch cloudy. The nose to me is of yeast, beer, apple cider, pear cider (perry), and apple sauce. The flavor on the palate reminds me of similar things but with really nice and refreshing acidity. It kind of reminds me of Mauzac a bit and some of the Blanquettes de Limoux that I have tasted, only a lot better than any Mauzac that I have ever had. This particular bottling from Grotta del Sole is also famous for being made from grapes from vines that are trained to grow up poplar trees. It's a pretty cool sight to see.

Dinner! All Ann's Idea!

When we were good and relaxed and the grill nice and hot, I put two big slabs of drum skin side down on the grill and closed it up, checking every few minutes until each piece had just turned opaque. I scraped the fish off the skin into the salad and tossed it all with dressing, all the while complimenting my beautiful wife on her wonderful dinner idea.

Dead Soldiers at Dusk

I am so glad that Ann had this idea for dinner tonight. She deserves all the credit.

Thai Winchester, Winchester VA

Sunday afternoon late after I awoke from a short nap after schlepping mulch all morning, Ann suggested that we go get some lunch before picking Carter up at 6pm. And more to the point, she wanted to get some sushi. Sushi options in Winchester are slim. Let me restate that: there are lots of places where you can get sushi but not many of them any good.

Though locals will debate this, the best of our sushi options is probably Awabi on the Old Town Mall, so we headed there even though there were several closer options. [Personally, I try to avoid sushi in Winchester so it's all splitting hairs to me.] But for some reason, Marcus had closed even though he is usually open on Sunday. I didn't check out the sign on the door to see why. We really like to support Marcus: he's a really hard-working guy trying just like the rest of us in our restaurant community to make a living and support our families.

In the spirit of getting something light, we stopped a few storefronts further north on the Mall at Thai Winchester where we would have sat outside except that all the shaded tables were occupied, so reluctantly we went inside. I know all the staff really well there and they always take great care of us as they did on Sunday.

I let Ann pick the dishes. I usually get the Roasted Duck Noodle soup because I love pho and this is the closest thing to it that I can find to it that is also close to my office on Mondays when I am looking for a quick bowl of soup between chores. And I was in the mood for something lighter on Sunday.

Summer Rolls

Something Fundamentally Wrong Here, Drinking Singha from a Chang Glass

Cellophane Noodle Salad



Roasted Duck Salad

Spicy Seafood Salad

I am happy to report that all these dishes were well done. That hasn't always been the case as they have struggled under the weight of three restaurants. The quality of the cooking has been up and down over the years and for the last couple of months, it seems on the upswing again. Yay!

Thai-Style Cellophane Noodle Salad with Lamb

It was blazing hot yesterday, just like a day in late July, and we were in the mood for something cool and refreshing. With a leftover roasted leg of lamb in the fridge to use, I set about a variation on the classic Thai beef salad mixed with a cellophane (mung bean) noodle salad.

It's a salad, so there isn't really a recipe, except for the dressing (and then there's only an idea and not really a recipe). I trust you can pick out the bowl of rehydrated cellophane noodles and then below that on the right, the dressing and a half a cup of dry roasted peanuts.

On the plate on the cutting board, clockwise from the julienne of sweet red pepper are yellow tomatoes, red onions, spearmint from the garden, cilantro and cilantro blossoms from the garden, and Thai basil.

On the other plate from the sliced lamb clockwise, there are lime wedges (for garnish), mung bean sprouts, cucumbers, and Thai chile.

The dressing is sugar and rice vinegar in equal portions cooked into a syrup and then flavored with sambal oelek (crushed chile paste), fish sauce, and lime juice.

And finally, I leave you with the food porn version of this salad.

Vietnamese Caramel Red Drum on Cellophane Noodle Salad

I think with all the heavy comfort food we've been eating recently, we both wanted to go lighter for dinner. Ann had suggested a cellophane noodle salad on the weekend but we never got around to making it. Cross that with some fresh red drum that just came in and you've got a tasty light meal.

Somewhere along the line, I got it in my mind to braise the drum in caramel just like the catfish in a clay pot that you see in every Vietnamese restaurant of substance.

The salad is cellophane noodles with julienne of carrot, daikon, and cucumber, sliced green onions, and shredded Thai basil and cilantro leaves, dressed with lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, and a touch of sambal oelek (crushed chile paste).

To braise the red drum, I first made a caramel of white sugar to which I added fish sauce, a lot of black pepper, and water. Then I added sliced shallots, sliced garlic, and the bulb ends of the green onion along with a little chiffonade of Thai basil. This I let cook down for about 10 minutes and then I added the red drum and slowly braised it, turning it once, for about 10 minutes. I removed the fish to the top of the salad, reduced the braising liquid to a syrupy sauce and poured it over.

Easy and tasty.