Soybean Asian Grille

Look at me! Back on the Pad Thai and Massaman curry hunt so soon.

Soybean Asian Grille, a new Thai place in Pike Creek Shopping Center outside of Wilmington, recently opened. I took one of those miserable, all-day-downpour days off from work (working in the rain sucks) to check things out.

Tucked in a large strip mall between Wilmington and Newark, Soybean Asian Grille is quite nice inside in that brand-spanking new, clean walls, crisp lines, dark lighting, I’m-trying-to-be-a-real-restaurant way. They need some wall hangings, though.

There’s a tiny bar right when you open the door that’s partitioned from the main dining room. Not sure why it’s separated, but it is. At 12 noon the lights were low, and gave an intimacy to the room and the impression of dinner dining.

If you dine in for lunch, a nice little side salad is included with your entrée. My salad came with tofu. Not sure if tofu is standard. I figure that the server astutely deduced from my two orders with tofu (one for there and one to go) that I would not be eating meat. The dressing was described as a peanut sauce. This dressing was thick and sweet – really the same sauce you get when you order saytay – not the lighter, tangier peanut sauce on some Thai salads. Either dressing suits me fine.

Confession: I eat fish sauce in Thai food when I’m dining out. I prefer not to, and I don’t like the taste or smell of it, but I can’t resist Thai food. It’s my one little vegetarian concession – a few micro milliliters of fish essence a year. Yep, I’m going to hell.

Fish sauce smells like wet dog to me, and I can easily detect it’s presence in dishes. Soybean Grille’s pad Thai reeked of fish sauce when it was set in front of me. I would say it was moderately heavy on the fish sauce compared to all the pad Thai’s I’ve eaten. The good thing about fish sauce is that after the first couple of bites, the smell disappears. Or maybe you just get used to it.

The noodles were too saucy; the sauce dripped off the noodles. The sauce also was too sweet. I like sweet pad Thai, but this crossed into the realm of too sweet. Ultra sweet could be your thing, though. Not mine.

There was a myriad of vegetables mixed throughout the noodles of the vegetable pad Thai: baby corn, carrots, broccoli florets, broccoli stems, button mushrooms, black mushrooms, red pepper, bok choy, green beans, and mung bean sprouts, not to mention two types of tofu. The variety of vegetables was a little overwhelming, but I didn’t mind too much. If you’re a purist and only like scallions and mung bean sprouts in your pad Thai, speak up.

Even though the pad Thai was enough for two sensible meals, I ordered the massaman curry to take home for dinner. A side salad does not come with your take out lunch orders.

Amazing! Light + camera = decent photo

Hey, look! All of those vegetables in my Pad Thai are in my massaman curry. I don’t like it when restaurants do this. It smacks of cheapness. It’s a one-size-fits-all solution, and means I can expect all of my dishes to be similar.

Usually only potatoes, onion, and peanuts, sometimes cashews, and your protein of choice accompany massaman curry. There were a few potatoes and peanuts in there, but only a few.

The sauce was not as thick as I like, but not thin enough to complain. It was a happy medium of thickness. The curry tasted good, but ever so slightly like a cross between massaman curry and penang curry. If the curry didn’t have the mélange of vegetables, I would have been pretty darn happy. But that’s not to say that I didn’t eat all of it.

In conclusion, I would not order the pad Thai at Soybean Grille again, but I would order the massaman curry. In reality, though, Soybean Grille is not conveniently located in my usual travels, so I don’t see myself returning. If I worked in one of the stores in Pike Creek Shopping Center, I would certainly order take out once a month, though.

Soybean Asian Grille
4702 Limestone Road, Wilmington, DE 19808
302-636-0800

Strawberry Bay Leaf Jam

A nagging desire to make jam hit me the other week when I finished off, yet, another jar of store bought jam (a pb&j every other day for lunch will do that).

I haven’t made jam since I was little when my mom would go to the farmer’s market and purchase a large basket of peaches, and make dozens of jars of peach jam to put up in the pantry for the coming year. Mmmmm. I love homemade peach jam, but, for some reason, could care less about store bought peach jam...but that's another story.

Well, it’s not peach season, but it is strawberry season! I got up first thing Saturday morning to hit the Headhouse Market for local strawberries, purchased three quarts, and got to cooking.

Along with the nagging desire to make jam, I also had a notion to pair bay leaf with strawberries. I looked around to see if strawberry and bay leaf jam had been done before, and came up empty handed. Maybe that’s not a good combination?

But I had to try it any way. I split the batch of jam into two – one with bay leaf, and one without – just in case bay leaf and strawberries was not a good combination.

And the results? Quite good! It’s still strawberry jam, but with a spicy, mysterious flavor. If you like intrigue in your food – What is that spice? I just can’t place my finger on it. Oh, yeah, it’s bay leaf! – then you’ll like this combination.

I sort of followed the cooking guidelines of this simple strawberry jam recipe from Martha Stewart, but I had no idea how many pounds of strawberries I had. I took a guess at how many pounds my three quarts of strawberries weighed, and then adjusted the lemon juice and sugar amounts.

We also couldn’t find the candy thermometer. So, how were we to determine when the jam reached 220° and the jam was set? Plate test!

Plate test (or gel test) is a fail-proof way to determine when your jam has set up enough. Place a saucer in the freezer at the beginning of your jam making session, cook your jam for just a little under the amount of time specified in the recipe (this is important because "things" happen quickly towards the end of cooking), place a teaspoon of jam on the frozen saucer, then stick the saucer with jam back in the freezer for 1-2 minutes. Remove the saucer from the freezer after 1-2 minutes, and if you push your finger through the jam, and the skin wrinkles, you’re done! If not, boil longer.

Seriously, this worked!

Strawberry Bay Leaf Jam
makes about 2 pints

3 quarts fresh strawberries, washed, drained, and halved
3 tablespoons lemon juice
4 cups sugar
2-3 fresh bay leaves

• Place two saucers in the freezer (in case you need to test the jam again).
• Cook strawberries and lemon juice in a large stock pot over medium-high heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until juices from the fruits have release.
• Add sugar and bay leaves to strawberries, turn heat up to a rapid boil, stirring occasionally, and cook for 30-40 minutes, or until jam thickens. Remove foam off the top of cooking berries with a spoon during the cooking process.
  
• To test jam for doneness, place a spoonful of jam on the frozen saucer, return the saucer to the freezer for 1-2 minutes, remove saucer from freezer, then push finger through jam. If jam wrinkles, the jam is done.
  
• Remove bay leaf from jam. Ladle hot jam into sterile jars. Refrigerate and eat within four weeks, or process for canning.

It's Unofficially Summer...

Pulled "pork" barbecue sandwich and coleslaw!!

And I’m officially happy! Summer rules, and this is why…

skirts, tank tops, flip-flops, high humidity, sweaty arms, ice cream, grilling, veggie kabobs, white wine, lemonade, glass condensation, late night bike rides, river-wading, swimming, Frisbee, the beach, bare feet, smell of sunblock, picnics, shenanigans, watermelon seed-spitting, garage sales, Slip-n-Slide, coleslaw, porch-sitting, thunderstorms, tree-climbing, hammocks, water guns, game of spotlight, warm nights, long days, gardenias, trampolines, fireworks, homegrown tomatoes, fireflies, spontaneous car trips…

Onion and Goat Cheese Puff Pastries

I’m in a puff pastry phase. Not a major one. I’m not obsessed. But the three packages of puff pastry I’ve gone through in the past couple of months probably number more than I’ve used in my entire life (used, not eaten).

So, I like the stuff. Turnovers with soft, fluffy puff pastry dough any day, over baklava with thin, crispy phyllo dough!

I also like how puff pastry dough turns me quickly into the hostess with the mostess. You can top or fill puff pastry dough with just about anything and have an instant dessert or appetizer – great for unexpected guests! (I don’t have any of those, though, unless you count the stray cats that invite themselves in my back door, and they’re helping themselves to Science Diet for fat cats.)

So, I don’t make the dough myself! It's frozen. Big deal. Homemade is time consuming, and I couldn’t do any better than the frozen stuff, any way.

Oh, and these caramelized onion and goat cheese puffs are really good; I just got hungry uploading these pictures!

Onion and Goat Cheese Puff Pastries
Makes about 24

2 sheets frozen puff pastry
2 medium onions, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons butter, or margarine
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
goat cheese

• Preheat oven to 400°
• In a skillet over medium heat, sauté onions in butter until caramelized, about 10 minutes. Add pinch of salt, a pinch of black pepper, and teaspoon of sugar to onions while cooking.
  
• Let frozen puff pastry thaw 10 minute. Cut sheets into, roughly, 2 ½ x 2 ½ squares (in order not to waste pastry, mine were more rectangular). Prick pastry with a fork multiple times.
• Place individual puff pastry squares in the bottom of an ungreased, nonstick muffin tin, pushing down the pastry so it conforms to the shape of the tin. Place ½-1 tablespoon of goat cheese in the middle of each puff pastry square. Then top with about 1-2 tablespoons of the caramelized onions
• Bake at 400° for 15 minutes, or until puff pastry is golden brown.

Salento

A dinner date at Salento fell through about six months ago, when this Italian BYOB on the western edge of Center City was still fairly new. But here I am now, cashing in my rain check.

Because of my lack of enthusiasm for Italian food, and disappointment at Italian restaurants that, for the most part, dish out heavy tomato sauce and cream sauce pastas, Salento’s olive oil-based, simple dishes hailing from the Puglian region and Salentine peninsula on the heel of Italy’s boot piqued my interest. Perhaps I just need to try Italian food from another region of Italy!

Warning: bad photos ahead! The lights were very dim during the dinner service. I’ve read other reviews liken the white washed, sparse interior of Salento to a basement, but it was the dim, intermittently flickering wall sconces (electrical problem, not intentional), that really made the dining room feel like a basement – a boisterous basement of diners, though; I could barely hear anything by partner sitting across from me at our tiny two-top said all night long.

Our dinner started with complimentary bread and olives. I generally stay away from bread, or else I won’t have room for the actual meal. I pinched a corner of the bread, and ate an olive. Yep, bread and olives. Nice if you need it, but I didn’t.

We started with the pan seared artichoke in garlic and vegetable broth. These lemony flower buds floating in mild broth were tender with crispy, fried tops – quite good.

When this grilled radicchio with gorgonzola, and balsamic reduction hit the table, the first thing my partner said was, “It smells burned.” The balsamic drizzle was not sweet enough to cut the bitterness of the overly charred greens – the radicchio itself was not even that bitter. Bitter greens, carbon char, and pungent cheese do not make a good combination, in my opinion.

The boy had the grilled butterfish with shrimp (shrimp were left off per his request), roasted broccoli (you can’t see it; it’s under the fish), and roasted potatoes. The flavors were simple, with just a touch of olive oil and garlic.

Salento marks the dishes hailing from the Puglian region of Italy on their menu with an asterisk, and I did make an effort to try those dishes. Once the meat dishes were ruled out, I think there were two pasta dishes from the Puglian region to choose from, and I did choose one of those vegetarian Puglian pastas.

I ordered the linguine aglione with roasted tomatoes, roasted garlic, and shaved ricotta – a simple pasta tossed with a few roasted tomatoes, but, to my delight, many roasted garlic cloves.

Again, the flavors were simple, but good. Although, I felt like I could replicate this pasta dish easily at home, and while this is not a sign of a bad dish, I usually expect food in restaurants to exceed my own cooking abilities. Is this Salento’s fault, or the fault of a cuisine that is inherently simple?

Seeing as I ran out of steam before I could finish my generously portioned pasta, we skipped dessert.

The service at Salento was attentive, if not a little too thorough. We had a server; many different kitchen/floor boys ushering plates and filling water glasses; and a managerial-type stopped a couple of times to ask how things were.

Other than the radicchio appetizer, Salento did not disappoint; it just did not excite. But if you enjoy Italian food more than myself, have a palate for simple flavors, and are looking for something other than red sauce-topped pasta, do check out Salento.

Salento
2216 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-568-1314
Tues.-Thurs., 5-10p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5-11p.m.; Sun., 5-9:30p.m.
BYOB

Vanilla Ice Cream

Really? Vanilla? That’s so…vanilla of me!

This vanilla ice cream was a birthday request from the boy, and who am I to deny birthday requests? I did ask him what he wanted, after all! His reply was vanilla ice cream with some sort of warm chocolate cake. The vanilla ice cream turned out fabulous; the Aztec chocolate lava cake only turned out alright.

Vanilla ice cream is America’s favorite ice cream flavor, with vanilla garnering 29% of the votes, and chocolate coming in second with 8.9%. If you had told me these results when I was younger, I would have called the masses crazy; chocolate is sooo much better than plain old vanilla. Now that I’m older, I do see the appeal of vanilla ice cream; it’s beautifully simple.

Because of vanilla ice cream's simplicity, you can top almost any dessert with vanilla ice cream and make it exponentially better. Apple pie is great, but add a scoop of cold vanilla ice cream to warm pie, and it makes people swoon.

Want to make some crazy ice cream concoction, or new flavor? Start with vanilla ice cream. Vanilla can take fruit, chocolate, jimmies, cookies, candy, wine, beer, tea, flowers, herbs, vegetables, and even meat (?). Anything, really.

The lesson here is that if you memorize a basic vanilla ice cream recipe (with or without the vanilla bean), you can make just about any ice cream flavor you can imagine – even chocolate.

The following recipe is a custard-style ice cream, meaning that it has egg yolks and requires cooking for the mixture to thicken before you churn the ice cream. Custard-style ice creams are rich and creamy.

A simpler type of ice cream to make is Philadelphia-style ice cream (Philly loves to claim things – I've got a whole book on things that happened first or originated in Philly – It's quite amazing), which does not have egg yolks, so does not require cooking. Philadelphia-style ice cream is lighter and chewier than custard-style ice cream. Simply remove the egg yolks from the recipe below, skip the cooking to thicken, and you’ve got Philadelphia-style ice cream; great for when you’re in a hurry.

As I type this, I am making another batch of ice cream. I can feel ice cream coming on strong like it did last summer, so forgive me, and bear with me. I have a list a mile long of ice creams I want to make, including the one I meant to start this season off with, and a vegan ice cream that fell through the cracks last year. I'm (not seriously) thinking of changing the name of my blog to something like Cream Queen, or maybe I Scream, because, believe it or not, I do know that Mac & Cheese is a really stupid blog name. Meh, I’m horrible at coming up with names.

Vanilla Ice Cream
makes about 1 quart

1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
¾ cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean
5 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Warm milk, cream, sugar, and salt in a medium sauce pan. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise, and scrape the seeds into the warm milk, and also add the bean. Cover, remove from heat, and steep for 30 minutes.
• In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Remove the vanilla bean from the warm milk, and slowly pour the warm milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Return the egg and milk mixture to the saucepan.
• With a heatproof spatula, stir the mixture constantly over medium-low heat until the mixture thickens, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pan . This is a “slow and low” process, to avoid cooking the egg and getting cooked egg bits in your custard.
• Pour the custard through a mesh strainer. Add the vanilla extract, and cool before churning.

Urban Gardening 2.0 - Mid-May

This is how our jumbled, tight-for-space garden is looking right about now. Not everything is labeled in the above photo, because the bed really is jumbled. There's a basil hiding between this and that, and a few tomatoes in the back, and even a watermelon over yonder. The watermelon is an insane idea for such a small spot, but we're going vertical with it, or, at least, hope to.

The empty space along the front of the bed used to hold cute, yellow violas that were an impulse buy waaay back when the first flowers were hitting the market, tempting saps like myself. The violas had to go to make room for the veggies.But I'm notoriously cheap (or you could say economical), so the yellow violas got a second life in containers.

Yeah, yellow violas and white geraniums together make my inner designer and outer hort snob retch, but the geraniums were free, and, like I said, I'm cheap! I'll tolerate this combination until something else free comes along. Plants are expensive!

Little baby celery stalks. Aren't they cute?

Bad flowers - mizuna (L) and arugula (R) are bolting. These annual greens are on their way out. Sad face.

Good flowers - tomatillos are in our future. Happy face!


Urban Gardening 2.0 - Late April
Urban Gardeining 2.0 - Late March
Urban Gardening 1.0