I have an obsession. I love buying cookbooks. And not just the easy-to-make weeknight recipe books but super hard and complicated cookbooks produced by amazing chefs that have some of the best restaurants in the nation (some of them ~ the world). When I buy these cookbooks I read through them with post-it notes flagging countless recipes I want to cook. But I rarely cook them. I’m not even a very good cook. I also have run out of space for them on my bookshelf. So before the cookbooks take over my house I think I should use them… cook with them.
So here’s my project: to cook every recipe in my fancy-smancy cookbooks. And to document them here, as I hope my blog obsession will force me to actually cook these recipes so that I can blog about them.
December 29, 2010
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Bacon and Shiso Leaf Fried Rice
This recipe called for minced ginger, onions, and shiso leaves. Okay, no problem with the first two but shiso leaves? I’d never seen that in the local grocery store so I hauled my butt up to Whole Foods in Darien in hopes they had a better produce selection but it was still a no go on the Shiso leaves. Fortunately, a quick google search on the iphone showed that mint and basil used in equal parts could be used as a substitute. Phew - I had those! Now on to the recipe.
Chop up half an onion, a tsp of ginger, and 20 or so leaves (a mixture of basil and mint).
Heat a wok over medium heat and cook 4 slices of bacon until almost crispy. Then fry up the chopped onion and ginger for a little while before dumping in some left over rice and mixing it all together.
Once everything is fried up and mixed nicely (add back in the bacon), make a hole in the rice and pour in a mixture of 2 beaten eggs, dashes of sesame oil, and salt and pepper and scramble it up.
To the rice goes some soy sauce and more salt and pepper to taste. The recipe also called for 2 tsp of sake. But thanks to the stupid blue laws of Connecticut I can’t buy alcohol on Sundays (and was too lazy to drive the 10 minutes into NY). So since I had grapeseed oil sitting right next to me I decided to substitute that for the sake instead.
