Candied Bacon

Dangerous candied bacon

What is that dark slimy looking spider like blob up there? Well its simply one of the most addicting flavors to ever be added to confections and desserts. Candied caramelized bacon. Thats right salty and smoky taste awesome with sweet and chewy food. Its almost evil. Putting meat in dessert feels bad, but tastes so good. Ive written this recipe before, but by popular request I have chosen to give candied bacon its own recipe. Its is amazing baked into chocolate chip cookies, or if youre really fancy these monster chocolate toffee cookies. You could also use it to garnish cupcakes (think banana peanut butter Elvis style!), doughnuts or whatever needs a modern and slightly wild kick. Whatever you put it in, people will ask you for the recipe. Send em here.

There are two popular recipes for candying bacon. Well one is more popular than the other. Most often I see recipes suggesting people put bacon on a silpat, cover with sugar, and let it do its thing in a 300 degree oven. That will work, and it will work with much less effort. But the bacon fat will crowd the baking sheet, and prevent the sugar from adhering and caramelizing perfectly. Small batches on top of the stove allows you to perfect the carmelization.

Candied Bacon

1 lb bacon
1 cup demura sugar (raw sugar)

Par-cook the bacon in a wide sauce pan or stock pot until only beginning to brown. You want to render off half the fat so you dont get that swimming in fat problem. I usually work in batches of 4-5 strips, pouring the fat off into a can between batches. You will finish cooking the bacon as it caramelizes.

Fry bacon a little bit to render off fat first

Pour off all remaining oil from pan. Sprinkle 1-2 tablespoons of sugar right on to the pan. Lay 4 strips of half cooked bacon on top, and cover with another layer of sugar. Let sit for 3-4 minutes until the sugar begins to melt. You may hear a quiet hiss or see small bubbles. If its loud and spitting oil you need to turn the heat down or you will burn the sugar. Periodically press the bacon down and into the sugar to really coat it. Flip after 5-6 minutes, and repeat. The bacon will be a very dark brown when its ready. Remove from pan and let harden in a cool place on a cookie sheet about 3 minutes. Repeat until all the bacon is done.

I find a pound of bacon takes the better part of an hour, maybe more like 90 minutes after clean up. You can chop the bacon up and add it to any baked good, or freeze it in airtight bags. The bacon is coated in salt and sugar, which means it should last for a few months. Dont be too ashamed to it plain like candy, sooooo good.

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Crayfish Part 1

I know your reaction. Whats this he is up to now ?

Well I was reading about crayfish and decided we would give it a go. Wanna then found a local farm selling crayfish near our place in Ban Muang.  She got excited about it as well. Seems the farm lady, she has been doing crayfish breeding for 3 years. Retired from teaching and now sells starter crays in packs to lots of people like us. She has editable and well as red and blue claw.  (See I know about these already.

Anyway we had a look round her place. All looked simple enough and well organised.  She as mainly small crays from breeding which she sells on. However the biggest in one tank was was about 250 mm long. 2 years old....  Thats a long time to wait for a decent meal.

We went last Friday to the farm and chatted away. Very helpful and informative. And agreed to buy 4 pairs of 2 month old crays.  We were excited and stopped on the way home Friday evening buying 4 black plastic bowls for their new homes. Also collected some old plastic water piping from my store for their new "homes" and some garden shade cloth for them to "play"in.  :)

Saturday early morning, saw us back at the farm and we found our crays already prepacked into a polystyrene box complete in chilled and oxygen saturated water, Also in the box was feed sufficient for 1 year. Small packet of food it was to. So I imagine they will not grow to much....

All set for the trip to Rayong. She explained that she exports round the county using this system, so we had a good 12 hours where they would be OK as they are. So they were dormant. Tiny things about 4 centimetres long.

Off we went back to Rayong. Rushed upstairs and got the air pump working, water temperature sorted out and them slowly released them into their new homes. Checked pH of about 8.0.  All OK.

Cray on left of key.  Very small.

More babys

Review of progress with our house workers.

Slow release.

Not aquaponics but a fun addition to the whole aqua "thing".

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Day 002 Sydney

I did well the first 2 days in Sydney. I was very mentally awake. What happens to your physical body on a 14 hour time difference is out of your control. It was raining and gray, so first priority in the morning was buying umbrellas. Afterwards off to Blacktown to love on some marsupials, reptiles, and birds. Australia really has great wildlife even if half of it (spiders, snakes, crocs, dingos, stingers, jellies, etc.) will kill you.

Koalas are like little furry people

I pet the kangaroo after it grabs the food I was feeding it away.

Wallabys are miles cuter than kangaroos, this one followed us around.

Wiped after an afternoon of cuddling marsupials we headed to the Rocks towards Sydney Central. Lord Nelsons is the oldest pub in Sydney, and brews its own beer. Most beers in Australia are watery, but the beer at Lord Nelsons is excellent.

Pure drinks, food and rugby at Lord Nelsons in Sydney

Lord Nelsons beer list

Ketchup is called tomato sauce. Never mind because sweet chili is the new ketchup. Its bright pink with little chili bits floating in it. A bit like sweet an sour sauce. Not at all spicy. It comes with fries, chips, wedges along side sour cream. Sour cream is unbelievably luscious here. Thicker and with less tang than Americas sour cream. I could eat it by the spoonful, or just apply it to my thighs as they say in my family.

Potato wedges with sweet chili and sour cream at Lord Nelsons, top notch pub fare

We tried reading the paper and playing pass and play Scrabble while digesting plate of wedges and a few pints of beer. Not a bad way to pass a Sunday afternoon unless World Cup Rugby is on. It was. Until I learn the rules, rugby is just a violent beastly man on man in shorty shorts sport.

After a few hours a walk, train ride, and stop at the bottle shop for white wine we sat down for seafood at Garfish in Kirribilli. Its BYOB. Its chilly but they have lovely covered outdoor seating with area heaters. Pacific oysters are plump with a clean ocean flavor. Again they come with sweet chili, like most things in Australia.

Snapper pie with broccoli rabe

Garfish serves an elegant list of regular dishes including snapper fish pie, fish and chips, salt and pepper squid, and a few more. The highlight is the specials hauled daily from the ocean. I had the famed Australia favorite barramundi. A thick moist flavorful piece of fish that practically melts in your mouth. Served on a comforting and familiar bed of peas and potatoes I cant imagine a better meal.

Barramundi on buttered peas and potatoes

For dessert, or do they say pudding, we had caramel ice cream on a Belgian waffle. Indulgent. Rolling off our chairs, we made our way down to the waterfront for the best view in Sydney. Sydneys harbor is full of nooks, crannies, and beaches, but only this view includes the Opera House and bridge. It was nearly 50 degrees by now, and jet lag attacks after 8 pm, so off to bed. No Sydney night life for me. Food, koala, and coffee.

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Reef Tank Part 3

Time to finish up the light canopy. Ill be running 4 florescent VHO lamps with an Icecap 660 ballast for a total of 440 watts of lighting.

I picked up a 4x8 sheet of 1/4" plywood and had it cut to size at Lowes and attached it to the frame with paneling nails.

next I measured for the risers to mount the endcaps for the bulbs, then i remeasured 10 more times and test fit before drilling pilot holes for mounting screws.
then I checked the fit and checked it again just to make sure.

I mounted the remaining lamps the same way and switched it on to test it out. (note:do not look directly at the lamps when you plug them in, i was seeing spots for 30 mins after)

Damn thats bright!

I finished up the top and mounted it to the hinges















Then i placed it on top of the tank and switched it on














perfect, now I have to mount the ballast, clean up the wiring , add the handle to the top ,add molding around the corners and stain it to match the stand.

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Onion Focaccia

Onions and yeast, ah the smell of it makes me drooly

Onions and wheat never go out of season (really just have a long shelf life) nor do they go out of style. In the dead of winter a hot loaf of bread is a breath of fresh air. Focaccia is a non-bakers friend. Its just pizza dough with extra oil. You dont have to knead if you have a food processor, and I suggest having a food processor. The other nice thing about this recipe is that the dough gets better the longer you let it sit in the fridge. Which means you can make mulitple batches of the dough in advance and bake it up in a snap without much effort. Its alittle richer than your average pizza dough recipe, but dont let that stop you from making pizzas with it.

Onion Focaccia

5 cups flour
.25 oz (or 2.5 tsp) active dry yeast
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp honey
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup oil
1 3/4 cup warm water

4 onions
1 tsp olive oil, more for drizzeling
red pepper flakes to taste
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tblsp medium ground corn meal
salt for sprinkling

Pulse 5 cups of flour, yeast, and salt to combine in the bowl of a food processor. Mix water, oil, honey, and vinegar together. Start the food processor and add the liquids in a steady stream. Dough will clump together and bang against the bowl once all the liquids are added. Keep processing for about 45 seconds. Sometimes my food processor starts to burn out (I can smell the motor) and I give it a minute break. The dough will be sticky. Scrape it directly into a sealable container. Let sit overnight in the fridge and up to 5 days. After 5 days you can freeze the dough for up to 6 months until you are ready to use it.

Sticky dough

Chop onion into 1/8 inch thick half moons. Now is when you really get to exert your power over food. Chop and cook those onions into tasty savory caramelized oblivion. Its best to use a thick bottomed pan so you can slowly brown them rather than burning them. Onions have a lot of sugar, and do burn if you dont watch out.

From this

To that

Add the onions, with 1 tsp of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and red pepper flakes to a heavy bottomed pot over medium heat. Stir to coat the onions. Cook over medium until transparent. Add the vinegar scraping bottom to pick up an browned bits. reduce heat to medium low and cook for about 30-40 more minutes until deep caramel color forms. The longer the better. The volume will greatly reduce but the flavor will get bigger. Stir often. Onions can be made 2 days in advance and kept chilled.

Dough after 3 days in the fridge is loose and bubbly

Ready to bake? Get ready to fill the house with awesome scent of onion and yeast. Grease an 11x17 rimmed baking sheet (Im using my trusty jelly roll pan) and sprinkle with corn meal. Not just any corn meal, you need to get medium/coarse corn meal. Medium corn meal also doubles as polenta in my home, and could even be passed off as grits. Im no grits expert, but I think it does fine.

Corny meal, look for medium ground

Drop the chilled focaccia dough onto the baking sheet. Stretch it with your hands into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick, nearly the size of the pan. Make indentations with your fingers. These will be little wells for the oil to collect in.

Sprinkle with a little oil and rub to cover. Next spread the caramelized onions over the dough. No for the part that separates pizza from focaccia drizzle the dough with olive oil until well coated and pooling in areas. Finish with a sprinkle of sea salt. Let sit in a draft free area for 60 minutes to warm up the dough and allow it to get puffy. Meanwhile preheat oven to 450 degrees. Bake for 20-25 minutes light browned. You will know by the smell when its almost there. Its the best smell on earth. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Slice and serve. Great a great snack for munching on while drinking beer. I made mine for super bowl. The focaccia didnt make it to the 2nd quarter.

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Ditmas Park CSA Weeks 1 2

Week 2 veg heaven

I had a mighty 1st week of the 2010 Ditmas Park CSA season. I am splitting a whole share with my roommate and first-timer Nicole. A great haul of beets, 2 kinds of onions, green beans, 3 kinds of herbs, 2 kinds of lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, purple kale, eggs, and 1/2 a chicken. It was beautiful. I took many pictures, and they corrupted before I could get them off my camera. Week 1 will have to be a memory. Pictures and description of the chicken made it out alive and are coming.

Week 2 was Nicoles week to pick up. I didnt get to it until late Wednesday, so these photos are of 3 day old veggies. Hmmm, something is off in my fridge and storage. Need to work on the humidity level, almost everything is wilted. The cabbage is 1o inches in diameter. Its as big as a globe and could possibly sustain its own satellites if it were launched into orbit.

5 little beets
2 yellow onions
1 large head of green cabbage (maybe 3-4 lbs)
1 head red lettuce
1 head green lettuce
3 bunches of herbs: mint, thyme, and basil
3 cucumbers
3 zucchini
1/2 lb green and yellow string beans
4 tomatoes
1 small head cauliflower
18 eggs (maybe because they are small, usually just a dozen)

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Were off Construction Episode 1 of

Following about 4 readings and rereading of Traviss Book and staring at the diagrams. I kept pondering...Wanna very clearly told me to stop talking about it and walk the walk...No more ifs or buts. Not even a what if?.... Just do it. Well hope you can follow that. Were off.

This is a photo taken from Travis Hughey Manual Barrel Ponics.

Its what I am intending to make. Thats the last of his pictures on here. (Promise). From now on this Blog will have my photos. You have to follow me....
Sunday morning and all house hold chores done. Finally run out of excuses to do nothing but read the book!!!!
First step locate my tools. Id brought them back down from Khon Kaen but they had been sitting in a big plastic box for well over 3 years. Would they still work was the question? Only one way to find out. Plug them in and pull the trigger. Fine all going well. So far so good.
So first job. Buy the plastic drums. Nothing for it but to go down the local second hand plastic yard and buy 3 x 200 litre plastic drums. In Thailand for some reason all plastic drums and pipe work comes in blue except for some yellow conduit used for electrical works.

11.00am finds us entering a seedy dirty old yard. In fact I only took one photo on the outside. But they had the goods. 3 drums for 1260 Baht. (Thats 30US$). Complete with oil and various other unrecognised residues which will require cleaning out and disposing.

11.30 hrs see us returning back home, to empty out the oil? Cleaning fluid? Whatever?... and then down to the real the job of cutting. There we were cutting up plastic drums and washing them out with detergent. All going well. Ghan was helping me on this, making life much easier. We decided to use my circular saw for the cutting. Easy, and if careful gives a good straight cut.I need to tell you. By 14.30 we had filled up the drums with washing powder and scrubbed the outside to remove the general dirt etc. Then left them to soak. Will leave them a few days. No rush. Im back to work tomorrow.Done. Step one complete. (Thats step one according to Travis I might add!).

This also gives me time to organise a frame for the drums and buy the various plastic fitting. For the frame I had asked a contractor at work to help me on this. Lets hope he come through on this as it will make things so much easier. So I had cheated a bit insofar as I had asked the contractor at work to make me a steel frame at support these drums. Much easier then wood and no problems with termites etc. (Taking the long term view....). He was very happy to help. Even thought when I explained my request for a fish tank he seemed somewhat bemused.

Well the usual story I gave a sketch and got well. Look at the photo. Its a massive piece of structural steel more at home on the construction site than in my back yard. But Hey! No complaints as it was done with much kindness and they will get put to good use supporting my new venture.

So thats the plastic sorted out. Next off to buy and install the necessary fittings. Thats Episode 2...And another day...

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New System Part 1

Well finally got myself motivated to start the new larger improved system. It is going to start out as a 1000 litre tank with 30 or so fish. Then have a deep raft hydroponics section. but you ask the photos show a larger tank. Quite so Watson... We are going to later increase the tank volume accordingly to 2000 litres and add in some normal NFT to see how it fares.  I am keen to do this for several reasons. Firstly to see if it will work and then also to use up my existing stock of the 2 inch pipe I have had stored for so long. Then Ill be able to get it all working and see what I can and cannot grow. Only after we have this working will I move to a bigger system.... The photos are of the area behind my in Laws You can see my collection of spate 2" drain pipe on the right hand side.  Ill be using the store as an office and of course a store... Also the area for fish tank and grow beds is more that adequate and south facing. In fact the heat might be a big problem.  Will see how we get along. Watch this space. Clearing and so on starts tomorrow. Then on Monday or Tuesday off to Chat  Takarn again to buy the grown beds. All exciting stuff.

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Harvest Time

Well good start to the day. We cut some of our Morning Glory ready for a stir fry.  Our little system is doing really well. Seems to have stabilized and even go the syphons to the grow beds working much better. Makes me feel I am learning bit by bit.

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KWT Winter CSA Month 1 Decemeber

I cant even begin to tell you how I excited I am. 3 years ago I belonged to the Kensington/Windsor Terrace summer CSA. I didnt like Garden of Eves quality compared to the other CSAs I had belonged to. This year I thought what the hey. Time to try again, and now I am so excited about it. The variety! The gigantic variety of crisp flavorful greens is blowing my mind. First thing I shoved some lettuce in my mouth. So damn good.

The winter CSA picks up once a month. If this was a weekly selection Id be offering you all some bok choy. Its gonna take me at least 3 weeks to chow through this.

KWT Winter CSA -- December

1 small head of cabbage
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch of beets
1 big bag broccoli florets
3 small heads of broccoli
1 head of garlic
1 diakon
1 butternut squash
1 big bunch of celery
2 small heads of fennel
1 dozen eggs
1 bunch of kale
1 bunch of collard greens
1 big bag of mixed salad greens

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By the Numbers

 How many pies does it take? 

Before I resume recipe writing Id like to get a few things out there on owning and running a restaurant. The first thing you should know is opening a restaurant is stupid. Its an easy way to lose money, or as I like to think of it, pay to work really really hard. If your friends ever say to you, "Everything you cook is so good, you should have a restaurant." slap them. Slap them hard. What they are really saying is, "Hey you should invest a lot of money/go into debt by opening one of the riskiest businesses there is, so I can maybe pay to eat your food every 2 months, or every month if I am actually a good friend." Or if they are really shitty friends, assume they can eat for free. There are lots of great ways to bring food to the world, catering, wholesale and retail food sales, dinner parties, dinner party clubs, fancy food markets and on. Taking care of a brick and mortar restaurant is just silliness. Sure it works some of the time, and who doesnt love a good meal in a nice restaurant, but do you really want to give up life as you know it to be the person who is that success? Lets take a moment to reflect and possibly high-five all the successful restaurant owners, managers, chefs, servers, dishwashers, delivery people, and one who are part of the food business. 

Numbers will rule your life when you own a restaurant. From little to small, you will be crunching and fighting all day long into your eyes retreat into your head. How many grams of salt in x food item, how many grams per serving in x food item, how many servings per batch in x food item, how many batches of in x food item can you fit in your not large enough fridge vs how often x food item goes bad, much should you sell x food item for, how many servings a week will you sell of x food item, how many servings do you need to sell to pay for rent utilities, food costs, and the salary of 5 people? How many pizzas do you have to sell to survive? If youre a bakery, how many cookie do you have to bake? There are more number questions and variables, but Im boring myself just by writing this.

It is easy to lose interest in the actual cooking and creating part. Its a left brain vs right brain saga. For the first month Loft was open I basically lived in fear of the food both spoiling or running out not knowing how many people might come every night. I over-ordered a lot of ingredients to be sure no one would go for wanting. Managing all that food is tricky. Early mornings I would stand in front of my 4-door and ponder the power I was wielding by controlling all those kilos of meat and arugula which (sorry localvore movement) has to be flown in from France.

Weekly specials are a nice plan b. They are a great way to use up something extra, and breath a little fresh air into the menu. Staff meal is another reliable back up.  There is a limit to what your staff are willing to repeatedly eat. Creative handling can make it better. Eggs are super food, binding ingredients into limitless possibilities. Soups becomes a staple. Somehow cooking food and storing it slows the demise of otherwise fading foods. I also like turning everything into a salad. Since the majority of my staff is health-conscious, I dont hear many sighs on salad nights.

Oranges, so many....

So how does one keep track of all the numbers? Spreadsheets. Thats right, its all plugged into boring spreadsheets and spit out on monthly finance reports. Spreadsheets are my least favorite thing on earth. Maybe violence, natural disasters, or traffic jams are worse. I have a massive spread sheet of how much each ingredient costs, from each supplier, the quantity the ingredient comes in and the price per piece, gram or milliliter here in Taiwan. After I write my recipes (in US measurement which is then translated into metric) I can calculate how much each dish will cost. After you crunch enough numbers you realize material value may not be dictated by price as much as fuel. Things imported items like baking soda, pasta, and bread flour are all the same price per gram.

Behold Taiwan late December tomatoes

Another interesting fact that turned up after I comparing ingredient prices is vendors in Taiwan are all pretty equally priced. Most oil, name-brand ketchup, sugar, salt, tomatoes, cucumbers all cost the same.  Service really defines a vendor. Taiwan has excellent service. My produce dealer used to teach me the Chinese names of my veggies when he first started delivering. The guy is busy, but he always has a minute to chat in Chinese about parsley. He once helped me with a chalk drawing on our street sign. He is at the top of our Rolodex.

Taiwan has pretty great agriculture. Our winter tomatoes do kick the East coasts water orange butt. Vegetable prices do go up in the winter, but some go down too. I am told that the summers typhoons can seriously effect vegetables availability and price, but luckily I havent been in business during a big one. When ingredients are in season they are really abundant. Oranges, have you ever seen so many kinds of oranges? Okay, Im from NYC, some of you have, but this makes me happy. Strawberry time is here right now and its utterly fabulous. Little sweet strawberries they way you dream them to be. I can not wait for mangoes to come back.

Behold, Taiwan strawberries with frosting on top. I later found out I could get them with honey. 

Its not just a lot to manage, its a lot to learn. Thankfully I have some great guides here. Everyone around the world appreciates great food after all the boring shit is done. 

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