The Daily Catch, Boston MA, Round 2

Just about a month ago, I went to the Daily Catch in North End, Boston (see!). I had known that their black pasta was their homemade special and was popular, but I didn’t get to try it. But this time, I knew what to order with my friend.

Black pasta is made of squid ink. Squid ink pasta is actually not uncommon in Japan. You get the ink as a sauce, so it’s different from the Daily Catch’s black pasta because this store’s pasta itself is black and you get to choose your pasta sauce, and we chose aglio olio. The pasta is on the thicker side, has texture, and is a new experience. I don’t think you can get this anywhere else in Boston (other than their Waterfront sister store). Also, lots of garlic used in this dish with our aglio olio selection, so if you don’t want garlic breath afterwards, perhaps you want to skip it. But I loved it!

Going backwards, we got an order of calamari meatball for our appetizer. Nicely shaped with rich squid flavor, which actually accentuated the sourness of the marinara sauce. Never had I had a seafood meatball before. Another new experience. Oh, I added some parmesan cheese on top and that increased the depth of this creation.

Overall, rated high. Yes, I’d love to go again.

Sorry the picture quality is poor

Homemade Granola

With all theses homemade granola recipes and great photos of them online made me want to make one myself. I learned a lesson from making this is that… never, ever (repeated 124 times) put oatmeal under a broiler. On my first try, I burnt it… more like I caused fire in the kitchen. The mini accident made me lose confidence in my cooking ability, but my boyfriend encouraged me to try making it again with his help. So, I ended up having a end product, and recipe that doesn’t call for a use of an oven.

Ingredients (for one serving+):

Rolled oats/oatmeal, 1 cup

Salt, 1/3 teaspoon

Honey, 1 tablespoon

 

Instructions:

1. Heat up a frying pan, and once it’s warm, add the oats. Stir it occasionally until the oats turn golden.

2. Place the oats in a small bowl (enough to fit the oats), add salt and mix well. Then finally add honey (and any other spice, nuts, fruits you’d like to add. For example: cinnamon, dried cranberries, dried blueberries, raisin, almonds, cashew, etc.). Mix well.

3. Place a parchment paper on top of some container and place oats on the parchment paper. This prevents granola (with honey) from sticking to the container, which saves you time when you wash the dishes!

4. Put the container with granola in the fridge for about 10 minutes until the oats are cooled off. This is a super simple and plain homemade granola recipe I made myself. So there’s a lot of variety that comes with it, they’re super easy to make (and there’s no need to use an oven!), so it’s great year round!

Crepe

One morning I woke up hungry and wanting to eat healthy food. I started off with a basket full of organic blueberries and found myself wanting more food.

Pancakes (my favorite)? But I actually went for crepe! Crepe, originally from France, is simply thinned out pancake (source: Wikipedia). I usually don’t make crepe myself because obviously speciality stores can make much better crepe than a first-timer making this delicate piece of food, but I had wanted to make it the weekend before (and it was raining out = no incentive to go outside), so I took on the challenge.

I made a slightly healthier version of crepe using whole wheat flour and no butter (I know, maybe crepe is incomplete without butter), but I made a different version of crepe. I had one with brown sugar and cocoa powder, and one with Greek yogurt, brown sugar, and cocoa butter.

This recipe is adjusted from this recipe.

Recipe yields about 10 crepes.

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flower, 1 and 1/4 cup

Milk, 300 ml

Hot water, 150 ml

Eggs, 2 large

Brown sugar, 1 tablespoon

Salt, 1/5 teaspoon

Baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon

Vegetable oil, 3 tablespoon

Instructions:

1. In a medium size bowl, combine beaten eggs, sugar, salt, baking powder, vegetable oil, flour, and hot water. Mix but don’t overmix.

2. Warm milk in the microwave (maximum 30 seconds), and pour it in to the bowl with the rest of the ingredients.

3. Heat up a frying pan over medium heat. Pour in two big spoonful of batter. Use the contour side of the spoon and make a circle with your dough so it forms a nice thin and round crepe (don’t worry if your first couple does not go well! I had to try it several times!).

4. Flip once the bottom side is golden. Then cook for another 1.5 minutes or so, then you’re ready to top it with whatever you desire!

 

Japanese curry!

This is another one of my comfort foods. Japanese curry is different from Indian and Thai curry because I think it’s sweeter. It’s really easy to make if you have the rue, you just need to chop up some vegetables, and simmer in low heat for one or two hours, and even let it sit overnight for deeper umami… you’ll have a perfect Japanese curry made!

This time, I used Vermont Curry package that I got from my friend. This happens to be a mild spice-level one, but I usually have a medium spice one at home. This recipe called for:

Curry rue (one box is for 12 plates)

500g Meat (I used chicken thigh)

800g or 4 Onion, medium, chopped

450g or 3 potatoes, medium, cut into four

200g or 1 carrot, medium, chopped up like potatoes

canola oil, 2 tablespoon

water 1400ml

1. Chop up all the vegetables and meat into your desired size

2. In a heated big saucepan, add canola oil. Once it’s hot, cook your meat until fully cooked.

3. Add all your vegetable. Actually, I like to steam my potato in microwave steamer for about 1 minute before I add it in with the chicken and other vegetable. But no need to do so if it’s too much work!

4. Stir your vegetable on medium heat for about 2 minutes. Add water, then lower the heat to low. Add the rue. I like to add it piece at a time, putting water and a block of rue on a ladle and carefully melt the rue with a spoon (as seen on one of the photos).

5. Once it’s all melted in and your vegetables are cooked, it’s ready to eat, but I like to keep it on low heat for about an hour or so, and thicken up the curry. Also, as mentioned above, you can let it cool off for the night, and the curry’s flavor develops even more! Serve it on hot rice and you’re all set!

*To store curry, you can put them in ziplock bags and freeze them!

Zo Gyros

Zo Boston, a contemporary Greek cuisine restaurant, has two locations near the Government Center Station in Boston, right in the middle of the office neighborhood. Really good for a speedy lunch for people working under time pressure. But I visited as a normal Friday-off college student with my boyfriend who occasionally grabs a quick bite here for his lunch time. My boyfriend kept on saying, “You’ll love it! It’s something you love already,” and it turned out to be true!

I ordered their Original Gyros that has “Authentic Greek Rotisserie (100% lean pork) wrapped in a warm flatbread with tomato, onion, and tzatziki sauce (low-fat cucumber yogurt). Perfect combination of all the ingredients used. No ingredient wasted. Generous amount of lean pork on the flatbread, so juicy and flavorful, the yogurt balances out the bold taste of the pork, tomato and onion brings freshness to the meal. The bread is also not a simple flatbread. The leftover oil from the lean pork gets brushed on to the bread but the bread doesn’t get soggy, so it’s not difficult to hold. I haven’t had too many gyros before, but I thought this one was definitely tasty. I would go back there again!

We also ordered veggie lentil soup, which was an all-vegan option. Zo had about four or five options of soup of the day. That’s pretty cool. My boyfriend’s favorite is their lamb chili soup. They also had lobster crab bisque, but we went for the healthier option. They’re homemade, so I bet they’re really good!

Zo website: http://www.zoboston.com/

Parish Cafe

Advertised as the best place to people watch in Boston, Parish Cafe, located near Arlington Station in Boston is a fun place to go. Not only is it a vibrant place full of people, it’s also fun because of their menu. Their menu lists sandwiches made by local Boston chefs–so it’s basically a treasure box. I believe their menu changes yearly as well, since I saw different selection on my second visit to the restaurant.

Second time around, I went with my elementary school teacher who was visiting Boston for spring break. It was during lunch time on a sunny Friday, so the line was pretty long when we got to the cafe. However, we were seated in about 20 minutes, which was a great time for us to take a stroll in the Boston Common. We sat outside, the best of the best place to people watch, and had our delicious sandwiches with beer.

My teacher selected a non-red meat protein option: Parish Chicken Sandwich by Sean Simmons, the Executive Chef/Owner of Parish Cafe. “A buttermilk, baked chicken cutlet on a deluxe roll with Romaine lettuce, sliced tomato, sharp cheddar cheese, applewood smoked bacon, homemade pickles, and a homemade spicy mayo. Served with your choice of homemade potato salad or coleslaw.”

I had The Burke by Jim Burke, Chef and Owner of Orta. “Thin sliced prosciutto, spicy capicola, soppressata and Provolone cheese served on French bread, toasted in the oven with olive oil and thinly sliced red onions. Served with a spicy red pepper relish and your choice of homemade potato salad or coleslaw.”

The portions here are HUGE, yes, I remember from my last visit, too. I couldn’t finish the plate. It’s very satisfying, though. The Burke was a bit salty even with my salty taste, but I guess it’s because it has prosciutto that is cured. The potato salad was surprisingly good, or perhaps it balanced out the salty sandwich for me. My teacher definitely enjoyed it since he likes to go to places with a lot of people waiting in line to get seats. Good place for Boston tourists to get introduced to the local chefs!

Parish Chicken Sandwich

The Burke

Grilled corn with parmesan cheese, chili, and lime

Inspiration came from Cafe Habana in NYC, La Verdad and Toro in Boston: grilled corn with parmesan cheese, chili and lime. Never had I thought of putting cheese on top of grilled corn, but it’s a prefect combination!

I think at all three restaurants I named used queso fresco for their cheese, but I used parmesan. I adjusted Emeril Lagasse’s recipe on the Food Network (which can be found here) and made my own version.

 

Ingredients:

White corn, 2, silk and husk removed

Parmesan, as much as you’d like!, slices

Cayenne pepper (I used Trader Joe’s “red pepper” found in the seasoning section)

Salt and pepper

Lime, halved

 

Instructions:

1. Soak the white corn in water for about 30 minutes.

2. Preheat oven, turn it to the broiler setting. Prepare a baking pan with aluminum foil covering the pan. Place the soaked white corn (cut into pieces, I cut each into three), and once the broiler is ready, keep it in the oven for 5 minutes.

3. After five minutes, corn should be a bit blackened. Turn over the corn, wait for another 3 minutes.

4. Season the corn with salt and pepper. Place the sliced (really thinly sliced) parmesan cheese on top of the corn, sprinkle on cayenne pepper. Put in the oven for 1 minute.

5. Done! Cheese should be melted. Squeeze some lime! and it should be eaten warm.