A Hungry Bear

thomas keller’s yabba dabba do

Monday, December 14, 2009

I picked up Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry cookbook a few months ago, and it’s one of the few that I’ve read cover to cover. The photographs in it are stunning - it really belongs on the coffee table. I’ve only mustered up the courage to make a couple of things from the book, since [...]

new york strip and fall vegetable roast with mustard cream sauce

Thursday, December 3, 2009

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I think I’ve finally started to cook enough roasts that I’m starting to get the hang of it. The most important thing I’ve learned is that you absolutely have to use a meat thermometer, and start checking it not even halfway through the amount of time you think it will need to cook. [...]

stout-braised brisket

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

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To use up the rest of the stout I got for the chocolate stout cupcakes I made last week, I turned to Epicurious. I’ve always thought of brisket as a vehicle for barbecue sauce, so the depth of flavor this dish had without any tomato-based sauce was pretty surprising. Next time I make [...]

tuscan spare ribs

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

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Our neighborhood Whole Foods carries a small selection of local pork. If they don’t have a certain cut of meat, I’ll find a way to adapt a pork recipe that I want to try. But recently, I had the opposite experience, going to WF and seeing a cut of meat I knew I [...]

chicken under a brick

Friday, August 14, 2009

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This looks like a pretty normal piece of roast chicken, right? But if you could bite into it, you’d notice it has crispier skin and is a lot juicier than normal. As usual, the Italians figured out a better way to cook something. In this case, it involves pressing a brick on [...]

lisa’s barbecue beef brisket

Thursday, May 21, 2009

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I finally got around to making A’s mom’s recipe for barbecue beef brisket (about a month ago, when A requested brisket, I tried a spice-rubbed, grilled and roasted version, which was pretty good). Since Lisa’s secret barbecue sauce was involved, this wasn’t much of a competition actually. Her recipe was the favorite, hands [...]

roast chicken with pancetta and olives

Saturday, March 7, 2009

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Whole chicken legs (drumsticks + thighs) are so inexpensive, but I don’t know too many ways to prepare them that don’t involve breading and frying. There’s always braising, which is more time consuming, and is so rich that it reminds me too much that I’m not eating a healthier all-white-meat chicken breast. This [...]

pork tenderloin with roasted winter vegetables

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

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This healthy one-dish meal was inspired by a recipe I found in February’s Gourmet magazine (the “quick meals” section is surprisingly helpful). Instead of limiting this to roasted fennel wedges, I added some carrots and parsnips, which I roasted separately for 15 minutes before adding to the pot with the tenderloin. I also [...]

bacon wrapped maple pork loin

Sunday, January 18, 2009

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First, an apology/excuse… I’ve been (and still am) traveling to Colombo, Sri Lanka, for a work trip. As with all other work trips, I cooked up a storm before leaving (both so A would not starve in my absence, and also so I’d have some photos and recipes to blog about when I’m [...]

horseradish crusted roast beef

Saturday, December 27, 2008

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This isn’t what I had for Christmas dinner this year, but if I wasn’t busy having the world’s most perfect Christmas dinner (an updated version of the classic Italian 7 Fishes dinner - instead of smelts and octopus and other dried salted versions of fish, try broiled lobster tails, crab cakes, crab legs, fried prawns… [...]