Just messing around: Chicken risotto quesadillas

At first glance it may not look like much. Or at the second or third glance even, I don't know. It really depends on how much you like quesadillas. Anyways, I assure you that this 1:00 am Saturday morning creation in my humble Poughkeepsie kitchen was worth its own weight in gold. A few days ago I went on a trip to my local Latin grocery store, Casa Latina. I picked up some cotija cheese, fresh corn tortillas  and some Mexican candies that all ended up tasting like chili powder and lime. I threw the ingredients in my fridge and waited for the moment when I would think of something fun to do with them. The next night, my friends made some chicken risotto, leaving behind plenty of leftovers. Finally, on the following night, the idea came to me. Chicken Risotto Quesadillas with hot sauce, cotija cheese, fresh corn tortillas, all cooked up in some lard. I chose lard because I'm watching my figure. I got the lard really hot in the pan and then added the quesadillas. This gave them that crispy browned texture on the outside. For some reason, I find the transformation of a raw corn tortilla to fried to be incredible. Limp and mealy one minute, golden and crunchy the next. The pictures under the quesadilla are the cotija cheese, the leftover risotto and some interesting hot sauce that I found in my fridge. It was really vinegary and perfect for the quesadilla. I've had a lot of quesadillas in my twenty years. From your American style flour tortilla with yellow cheese and maybe a microwave, to your northern Mexican pressed masa dough, stuffed with fresh white cheese and deep fried like an empanada. I had never before had one with risotto in it until now. It was, hands down, the best one I have ever had. Cotija cheese is like Mexican feta cheese. it melts really well and is tangy, but at the same time has a very fresh milk flavor. I like using corn tortillas because they are a little closer to authentic Mexican and they have a nice bite to them. The risotto was great for a quesadilla because it was spreadable, already had chicken and vegetables in it and it sort of melded together with the gooey cheese. I added the hot sauce into the mix because this dish was just screaming for some acid to balance some of the more bland flavor components. When all was cooked and done, everyone in the room was eating very happily and quietly, always a good sign.
SOY EL FOODERINO, OLE!

First product review!!: Pork Grinds Hawaii

Thanks to the lovely folks over at Pork Grinds Hawaii, I got to do my first Product review! I want to start out by saying that these are not your run of the mill, gas station pork rinds. As a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, I give this product my very own seal of approval as being a "gourmet pork rind". I was really intrigued by the concept for this product which is, essentially, pork rinds with very interesting flavors. Being an Asian food nerd myself, I requested to try the kim chee flavored, char siu, furikake and then just for fun, sea salt and vinegar. I know sea salt and vinegar is not Asian but it is delicious. A couple of my culinary friends and I had a tasting of this product and the results were unanimous. Everyone's favorite flavor was the char siu. If you aren't familiar with char siu, It is just the Chinese word for roast pork, Chinese style. Think about the flavor of those sticky red spare ribs you got from your local Chinese restaurant growing up. This is a flavor I know most of us can relate to because, 1), everyone loves ribs and 2),  every mediocre Chinese food restaurant in America is sharing the same recipe book, I'm sure of it. I loved this flavor because it actually tastes as though you are eating a crispy spare rib. Second place in the flavor contest was given to the sea salt and vinegar pork rinds. These were just as addicting as any sea salt and vinegar chip and it really worked well with the pork rind flavor. They were light, crispy, vinegary and delicious. I was really excited to try the kim chee flavor because I love the skunky, fermented saltiness that is kim chee. Also, these pork rinds had that fiery red color that kim chee gets. It wasn't skunky smelling like the real stuff, but it did have that taste of Korea. I really enjoyed the flavor of the Korean chili pepper in the kim chee flavor. It was very mild but with more chili flavor than heat. Last but not exactly least was the furkikake. If you have never heard of it before, furikake is also known as the salt and pepper of Japan. Often sprinkled on top of rice, it is a Japanese seasoning that can be made with a number of spices and ingredients. It can include dried seaweed, sesame seeds and sometimes dried shrimp. Even though it was my least favorite of the bunch, I still enjoyed the experience. It had a flavor profile similar to sushi because of the seaweed. Overall, I really liked this product. I cant say enough good things about that char siu flavor especially. It really tasted like it had been roasted in a Chinese roasting oven. Mmmmmm, good stuff.  Thanks again to Pork Grinds Hawaii, Mahalo Y'all

These were only four of the many flavors the company has to offer.
If you are interested in getting some of these gourmet pork rinds for yourself, check out their website at porkgrindshawaii.com

some pics from a recent trip to a Washington, DC fish market

Macaron, NOT MACAROON!

 

In the words of the great Peter Griffin, "You know what really grinds my gears?". When people refer to these ethereal french pastry creations as macaroons, I cringe. There is a big difference. The difference is that one is made by a professional pastry cook and the other is made by my Bubbie Rose in Boca Raton. These are Macarons, pronounced as it is written. If you haven't tried one yet, you should drop what your doing right know and run, as fast as you can to your nearest french bakery. The Macaron is a   sandwich of two cookies made of meringue and almond flour with a butter cream and jam center. The cookies are carefully piped onto baking sheets and cooked slowly to create a dome that collapses under your teeth as you bite down, then dissolves away. The butter cream and jam center of these Macarons can be any combination a pastry cook could come up with. The Macarons in the above photo were from the Apple Pie Bakery at the Culinary Institute of America.  They are flavored, from top left to bottom right as follows: Cherry limeade , Litchi and raspberry, goat cheese and apricot, orange creamsicle, vanilla white chocolate. My favorite was  the litchi and raspberry. Goat cheese and apricot was also very pleasing on the palate. The whole sweet, sour, salty element of it was very cool. I cant say that I was a fan of the Cherry limeade. Perhaps this flavor combination should stay in its original birthplace, the slushy department at Sonic on route 9. And to make my point very clear here, this is what a Macaroon looks like. Also this is what my Bubbie Rose in Boca looks like.

So here is a little more about these incredible empanada's. First I would like to address the fact that there are only two empanadas on the plate in the picture when I clearly state that there were three flavors. Its true, there were three flavors. This is simply explained by the fact that I got excited and ate the first one before I could blog about it. The first empanada I got was a Mexican style jamon y queso (Jam and cheese for you Yankees). It's crust was flaky, crispy and delicate on the outside, with a flowing river of melty white queso and salty jamon on the inside. The second, just queso, was all that was described in the first, simply minus the jamon. Last but certainly not least was the Chilean style baked beef empanada. I can always appreciate this one because it has a unique fold to seal it closed, it has an olive in it (just one!) and it has a hard boiled egg in there too, because why not, right? Plus its baked so that makes it totally healthy for you, duh. So these empanadas were really good but the unsung hero of the meal was the sauce that it came with. It was basically a pico de gallo style salsa with the addition of some hot sauce. I don't think any sauce could have complimented the crispy and cheesy empanadas better than the fresh and spicy salsa  that came in the little plastic mystery cup. Empanada's hold a very special place in my heart, unfortunately that place is my clogged aorta in about 30 years. Is it worth it? Si!

Finally found a good Chilean bakery!

Three empanadas, cheese, ham and cheese, beef. Salsa picante. Increible!

Hi peoples of the world,

My name is Jake Sumberg and I am a culinary arts student at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. I love to cook and I love food, all of it. This blog is devoted to both of these loves and the ever changing, always interesting food industry. I plan to review new and interesting food and drink products. I will also try and give you a peek into the fine dining food industry from the perspective of a cook. 

I AM EL FOODERINO

Enjoy!

First post ever, it's poutine, people